Mr Smith Goes to Washington
by chezchuckles
Summary: a co-authored story by chezchuckles, FanficwriterGHC, International08, JeuxDeVagues, Sandiane Carter, and Topsy. After Beckett is shot, Mr Smith enters the picture to 'save the day.' But who is Mr. Smith and what is he to Beckett and Castle?
1. Chapter 1

**Mr. Smith Goes to Washington**

* * *

><p>a co-authored fic by:<p>

**chezchuckles**, **FanficwriterGHC**, **International08**, **JeuxDeVagues**, **Sandiane Carter**, and **Topsy**

* * *

><p>A bright afternoon in a too-green cemetery.<p>

A sniper.

A bullet.

It takes so very little to turn Richard Castle's life upside down.

* * *

><p>There's something about approaching a woman with flowers. Smith watches as the man stalls at the side of a private room, bending his knees to fix his hair in the reflective surface of the window. Bags beneath his eyes, a slump to his shoulders, a suit that's wrinkled from too much sleeping in uncomfortable waiting rooms—he has all the thinly-veiled signs of trauma.<p>

Since standing here and watching, waiting for the man to pluck up the courage to go inside would be conspicuous, and he has an agenda today, Smith instead strolls down the corridor past the other man. He keeps his ears open, smirking as he hears the door to ICU finally open. It was a nice bouquet, and he finds that even his brutally realistic self still hopes the woman will be pleased by it. More than that, Smith hopes she's worth all the trouble.

For the man. And for Smith himself.

He swings around the corner with purpose. Walk with enough of it and no one questions anything. He fits in. His photographic memory comes in handy. He knows all of their names, nods to Nurse Marian as he strolls into the break room.

The standard issue blackberry isn't his preferred model, but five of the other white coats are using them, so he blends in. Smith composes his email with care as he leans against the window, one eye on his phone, the other out the window, watching, waiting. It's all been pretty smooth. He has a back-up plan in place. But he won't need it. This should work.

Text lights up beneath his thumb, copied into a new, traceless email. He's just another nameless phone in a busy hospital, yet the outgoing message is anything but innocent. He hovers over the send button for a mere second before pressing down, sending his threat out into the ether. And then he waits, standing straight as he cracks his back.

Blackmail. Pure and simple.

Only it's anything but. He has a plan, and thankfully, the late Captain, Roy Montgomery, has given him exactly what he needs to accomplish his goal.

At that moment, Smith notices the man as he strides back down the hall, headed for a side door. Of course, he's trained to notice, even if he didn't expect the man back outside so soon. Kicked to the curb. That unmistakable sag of a down-trodden man is difficult to miss, slumped as he is going down a small hallway—a detour that will lead him to a mostly concealed side exit.

The man—though barely a man at the moment—runs his hand through his hair, head hanging, back braced against the wall. He sighs, a hollow, broken sound unbefitting a man proven to smile so much. But Richard Castle hardly looks like his book jacket today.

They polite-nod to each other as Smith leaves, the man against the wall as if holding it up, being held up. Smith won't stop, would never interrupt the mission. He has too many balls in the air, and honestly, Richard Castle's mental well-being isn't worth his time.

Caging the beast - the Dragon - is no small feat.

He glances back once more as he reaches the end of the hall, just in time to watch Richard Castle straighten up, feet shoulder-width apart, face tight but determined.

Yes, Smith can already tell this will be an endeavor. He has to make sure he gets to this conspiracy first. Because the man coming down the hall is on a mission as well, and the glint in his eye breathes determination and revenge.

Perhaps Detective Beckett won't be the only problem that needs handling.

* * *

><p>Over the next few days, Smith's initial impression is confirmed.<p>

Every time he sets up another domino, orchestrates another cover-up, he tends to run into Richard Castle. Either him or another of those detectives from the 12th precinct, the ones he caught a glimpse of at the hospital.

Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan.

He knows them now, probably better than a close friend would. He knows their ranking when they graduated from the Academy, knows where their families live, how many brothers and sisters, how many cousins, how distant they are. What they had for breakfast, how many workouts they skipped, how they ranked on the firing range.

He knows their weaknesses. Who they hate. Who they love.

It's nothing personal. He's just doing his job.

He knows how long they've been working with Detective Kate Beckett, too, and by extension, with mystery novelist Richard Castle.

Castle seems a strange man lately, subject to sudden mood swings. He will stride into the 12th precinct with determination hardening his face like stone, only to walk out a few hours later, shoulders slumped, looking thoroughly disheartened.

Or seething with anger. Depends on the day.

His face is always neutral by the time he gets home to the two redheads, though. His mother and daughter.

The mother looked vaguely familiar; it took him a minute to place her. An actress. From that Shakespeare in the Park thing, all those years ago. The play was Much Ado About Nothing, but he can't remember which character she was playing. It annoys him.

She's aged considerably since.

Surprisingly enough, Castle doesn't go back to the hospital. That's strange too, considering the amount of effort the man is putting into finding the Beckett woman's shooter, and the flowers at the hospital, the vacant look in his eyes before he knew she was going to make it.

Smith can't make sense of it.

But it doesn't matter. He's not here to understand; he's here to make sure Richard Castle doesn't blow things. And doesn't get killed.

For now, anyway.

He's here to untangle an ugly mess of knots, and then take control of the reins.

And he's never been known to fail a mission.

* * *

><p>Castle slams the door shut, slumps into the driver's seat, face buried in his hands. He presses his fingertips to his eyebrows, tries to gather some positive energy, something that's not dark, hopeless and miserable.<p>

They're getting nowhere.

Nowhere.

It's ridiculous. There must be a trace somewhere, a lead, however thin, that will take them to the shooter from the cemetery. This guy can't be a ghost.

It took a real finger to press that trigger, just like it took a real bullet to tear through Beckett's clothes, through Beckett's chest, through Beckett's heart-

He jerks violently, hitting the headrest with the back of his skull, panting.

He can still feel the hot stickiness of her blood on his fingers. That first night, he washed his hands over and over again, until Alexis came to find him in the bathroom, turned the tap off, led him to his bed with bleeding eyes.

He can still smell it in the air, the metallic taste of it drowning his throat. His heart quivering as he hoped and prayed and begged.

He crushes the back of his hand to his mouth, forces himself to breathe.

Three weeks and they've got nothing. Leads are getting colder and colder. Esposito and Ryan are still trying, but-

They need Kate. Their team needs Kate.

And Kate isn't here.

He bites his lower lip fiercely, the familiar anger building inside him. No phone call, no text, nothing. She's ignoring him. Or is she?

Ignorance would be better than this. Ignorance would mean she's doing it on purpose, that she's mad and keeping him at arm's length for some reason; with ignorance, he would still know she's there, would feel her annoyance radiating at him.

Instead, he feels – nothing.

Emptiness.

If it wasn't for Jim Beckett, he might not even know she's not in the hospital anymore.

Jim called him. Took pity on him (it's what it is, really, and Castle feels pathetically grateful, would probably have wept in front of the man if Mr. Beckett had come to him instead of using the phone).

Jim Beckett called him, and Kate-

Kate's silent.

And it hurts. God, it hurts.

His phone chooses that moment to buzz in his pocket; Castle reaches for it with feverish fingers, the iPhone almost escaping his too-eager hand.

As usual, his heart thumps with excitement for a split second before he realizes his mistake. Jim Beckett, the screen flashes. Not Kate Beckett.

Still. It's better than nothing, right?

"Castle," he says with resignation as he picks up.

"Hello, Rick." The older man has taken to calling him by his first name – a consequence of the hours spent together in uncomfortable hospital chairs. Castle doesn't mind. "How's it going?"

They try to be careful on the phone. Say as little as they can.

"Nothing new," the writer sighs. He hears the bitterness in his own voice, but what can he do? "How is she?"

"She's…getting better, I think. Always hard to tell, you know? But she's eating, and moving around a little bit. Probably doing too much," he chuckles, "but I'm not crazy enough to get in her way."

The tenderness in the man's voice makes Castle's gut churn, makes his chest squeeze in agony. How badly he wants to be there, wants to be the one taking care of her.

Kate.

His soul aches, yearns for her.

"Good," he forces himself to say. "I'm – glad to hear that. I, uh. I should let you go. Alexis is waiting. But thanks, Jim. I appreciate your calling."

"Nothing to thank me for," Kate's father answers in a gruff voice. "Take care of yourself, Rick."

Castle hangs up and stares longingly at his phone. He lied; Alexis is staying at Kelsey's tonight. There's no one waiting for him at home.

It's early, too. A little after five.

Maybe he should go back into the precinct. Esposito told him to take a break, that he couldn't take any more frustrated sighs and muffled curses; but now that he's calmer…

Problem is, without her, the precinct loses a great deal of its attraction.

He looks at the phone again. He shouldn't even be thinking of this – she asked for space, said she would call – he should be barricading his heart, hiding away from the inviting, fluttering eyelashes of temptation.

Instead, he hits speed dial 5, presses the phone to his ear.

It's so wrong.

But it feels so right.

"Hey. Can you trace a call for me?"

* * *

><p>Smith is thumb-typing an email when the car he's watching starts suddenly, the roar of the engine quickly followed by a skillful insertion in the street's traffic.<p>

Wherever Richard Castle is going, it sure looks like he's in a hurry.

With a perfect poise, the former CIA operative puts his phone away and starts his own engine, taking the time to buckle his belt before he puts his hands on the wheel. He's known an agent or two to die stupidly in a car crash, all because they had launched themselves in the pursuit of a subject without having fastened their seatbelts.

Stupid.

Agent Smith is anything but.

He turns his GPS on and maneuvers his car behind a van; the vehicle is large enough to hide his for a while. He doesn't think Richard Castle has ever noticed him, but it can't hurt to be careful.

When they turn onto I-495, Smith lifts a mildly intrigued eyebrow.

He's been following Richard Castle for almost three weeks, and this is the first time the man has left Manhattan.

_Where are you going, Castle?_

* * *

><p>Asking Ryan was the right move.<p>

Esposito is unpredictable; you can never be sure of how he'll react. But Ryan? Ryan is softhearted, a romantic who doesn't have the distrustful nature of his partner.

Ryan traced the call without asking questions, and even when he found the address – found the name associated with the address – all he did was ask Castle if he knew what he was doing.

The author said yes, of course, although that couldn't be further from the truth.

He doesn't have the slightest idea of what he's doing.

Which is why he's focusing on the road. Only the road. Nothing else.

After an hour of resolutely staring at the asphalt and keeping all extraneous thoughts off his mind, however, he finds himself utterly exhausted and incapable of resisting his bladder's urgent calls any more. (Too many late nights, too much coffee.)

He sighs, and reluctantly takes the next exit. As he checks in the side-view mirror, he notices another car doing the same thing, a little ways back.

It could be any car. There's nothing special to it; it's a slushy grey. It's not a fancy, shiny, black sedan with tinted windows. Not a van, which is what Castle tends to use in his novels, when he wants to indicate danger, suggest an underlying threat.

Still.

This car is the only one exiting the interstate with him, and that's enough to make him nervous.

He parks quickly and beelines for the bathroom, trying to keep an eye on the grey sedan. It's such a blend-in color; he's lucky that only a few drivers have chosen to stop here, otherwise it probably wouldn't be that easy to pick out.

It's parked at a good distance; he can't make out the features of the man behind the wheel, and the guy doesn't seem intent on getting out either.

Castle walks into the convenience store, disquieted, suspicious.

He takes a little longer than he usually would, looks at the magazines, buys a drink, a bag of chips. When he finally steps out, the grey car is still there.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Gritting his teeth, Castle slides back into his seat, tosses down the chips and the Coke, not even caring where they land.

What now?

He rubs a hand up and down his face, feels the hope that he's been entertaining, like a stupid kid with a too-fragile balloon, pop out and deflate, die out in his chest. Pathetic.

He's pathetic.

He can't lead this guy to Kate. Can't take that chance.

And it's probably for the best anyway, right? She doesn't want to see him. She doesn't need him. That much is clear, at least.

He tries to picture her, wonders what she's doing, if maybe she's sitting outside at her father's cabin. He sees the long curls of dark hair brushing her cheek with the soft evening breeze, a hint of color back in her pale skin, cheekbones a little less drawn, maybe.

He hopes so.

The want builds inside him, pushes against his chest, sharp, painful.

What is she thinking? Is she talking to her dad? Reading?

Reading one of his books?

He closes his eyes, tightly, wills it away. The need, the love, the pining – if only he could control it, could suppress it, suppress the welling tears that choke his throat, suppress the hammer of his heart against his ribs.

Oh, _Kate_, Kate.

He can't suppress it, but he can push it back. He has to. It takes a lot of energy, many deep, slow breaths, his brow knit and his lips pressed together, but in time it recedes like a wave, leaves him empty and alone and miserable.

It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, as long as she's safe.

As long as she's alive.

Castle starts his car, gathers himself, and he takes the interstate back to New York City.

Alone.

* * *

><p>Smith double-checks the sign for the on-ramp, frowns as he slowly turns onto the interstate.<p>

Castle is returning to the city.

He hangs well back, moves at an adequate speed, but he realizes after only a few miles that Richard Castle's driving is erratic, when it wasn't before. Speeding up suddenly, slowing way down, cutting in front of SUVs in the fast lane.

Castle went over an hour outside the city limits . . . just to stop at a gas station and buy a Coke he didn't drink?

Smith keeps back, lets the man do his strange-

_Shit._

He was made.

He was made by this guy.

Seriously? Over forty years in this business and Richard Castle made the tail? Spotted Smith's car and pulled off at a random exit and-

Damn. The man is more observant than he gave him credit for.

Smith scrubs at his face with a hand and sighs, then lets the car drop back a little farther. A little farther.

He'll just follow the GPS instead.

Too bad. Smith always prefers doing it old school.

* * *

><p>It takes so little to turn Richard Castle's life upside down.<p>

Three months of nothing.

And then thirty minutes of a conversation held on a swingset, ripe with promise.

She says so much, gives out so much, that he can hardly believe it. She doesn't look him in the eyes at first; in fact, she avoids confronting the knowledge, the anger in his gaze, until the last, when she jokes and teases him, lightly, using a soft touch.

Having even just that, his hands wrapped around the chains of the swing because he longs to reach for her instead - having the smile in her eyes, the smirk on her face, the fall of her hair in the late afternoon light - having it right here, at his side, all turned to him, it does help.

It helps.

At the same time-

He doesn't say, _I had Ryan trace your Dad's cell phone back to the nearest satellite and then do a property search until we found the address for your Dad's cabin and I almost, almost led a shadowy man straight to you._

He doesn't say, _Why did you leave me?_

He doesn't say, _Don't you know I love you?_

He scoffs instead. Pretends it's nothing, that he can charm his way back into the 12th without even lifting a finger, that the three months not knowing didn't hurt so badly, that not even hearing from her in three months, three months in which she must have expressly told her father to stop calling her friends with updates because _no one_ heard from her-

He pretends it doesn't matter. Because she's alive and she's breathing, and here she is.

She needs him to wait; she has a wall. In the meantime, she's even smiling at him. Smiling. So okay. As long as she keeps breathing.

He walks away from that meeting on the swings thinking that yes, he can breathe again too, he can do this - that it's enough.

And then. Then, he gets a phone call.

And his private world is thrown into chaos once more.

Because it has to - it _must_ - remain private.

One more thing that he doesn't say.

One more thing he can't tell her.

* * *

><p>He watches her walk away, <em>it's enough for now<em> still ringing in his ears.

It's not.

He knows it isn't enough for her, and it's obviously not enough for him either if the recently repurposed storyboard in his office is any indication.

But if she backs down, he can keep her alive - and even if keeping her alive means he doesn't get to keep her, then he can make it be enough. For now. For always, if that's the way it has to be.

The hitch in her voice the night before, the brimming moisture in her eyes, the dim light casting her too prominent cheekbones into sharp relief as she told him _Everyone's gone_ - it was that moment that cemented his resolve.

He knew he'd do whatever it took to give her closure.

Last night, he watched her break, and he was powerless. He wanted to remind her. He wanted to stand up from his seat at her table and pull her into his arms. Comfort her. Hold her. Never let her go.

But she has a wall. And he is on the other side.

So instead, he met her eyes, tried to tell her without words that not everyone was gone. That he was still there. That he would continue to be there.

And then he went home, home to an angry daughter and a worried mother and a phone call that he never expected.

This time, when she glances back, catches him still watching her, she turns, a little furrow forming between her eyebrows.

"You going home?" she asks, and when he hesitates, she tilts her head to one side. "Castle? You okay?"

He nods slowly, fabricates a smile that becomes real when she walks toward him, jerking her head toward the elevator.

"C'mon, partner," she says quietly, gently. "I'll give you a ride on my way."

He follows her - of course he does - into the elevator where she stands close to him, not quite touching. She looks over at him, and he can see in her eyes the blend of need and gratitude. He was angry, and some part of him still is.

But it's lessening. The more he sees her alive and smiling, alive and talking, alive and not bleeding out under his hands, the more his fury ebbs away until most of what remains is just the hurt. Because he is hurt. Three months with no word ate out his heart, his soul.

To get her back only to find out that she could be taken from him again if she's too stubborn - well, that hurts too. And so he's determined to not let that happen.

She nudges him with her elbow as the elevator doors open. "Got time for a slice?"

He shouldn't - he should go home to his daughter. She'll be waiting for him with disapproving eyes that condemn him for following his heart. With pity too, for the man who loves so deeply but whose feelings don't seem to be reciprocated.

But he sees it differently. He sees the way she sought him out at his signing. He sees the way she opened up to him on the swings. He sees the way his words bolstered her confidence in the face of a nightmare. He sees the way she smiles back at him, a little shyly.

It isn't enough. But it's a start.

"Yeah, I have time."

* * *

><p>She can tell he's watching her. He's grown quiet, and he's stopped playing with his phone, that's generally his tell. It could be that a theory is brewing in that writer's mind of his, but somehow she doubts it.<p>

He always loves to share, no matter how crazy, how twisted the idea.

So. He's watching her.

Kate doesn't interrupt the course of her fingers over the keyboard and tries not to let her inner smile out. Oh. It might be too late for that.

Well.

Two years ago, she'd probably have called him out for this. The staring. She'd have said something about the creepiness, would have issued a threat or two, and would have laughed inwardly at the mixture of arousal and fear in his blue eyes.

Mmm. Too easy.

But today. Today, the main feeling dancing in her chest isn't exasperation or amusement, no. It's gratitude.

He's staring at her, and she's _grateful_. Because it means that they're back to normal, a tentative, hesitant normal maybe, but still. He's here, sitting in the precinct with her, working on the case, even after everything.

Even after the hangar and the cemetery and the too-long summer.

If she wasn't at work - if she wasn't a cop, if her need for control wasn't such a big part of her - if she wasn't Kate Beckett-

The gratitude might swallow her whole.

As it is, Kate finally turns her eyes to Castle, intent on letting him see - maybe not everything, but at least, at least, everything she can get through the wall. He should know. He should know what he does for her, how he lights up her inner world with his smile, speaks to her heart with the warmth in his eyes.

But she was wrong, she finds. He's not staring at her.

He's staring into space, his hands on his knees; and from the look on his face, his thoughts are none too pleasant.

"Castle?"

He jumps a little, lifts his eyes to her.

"Yeah?"

She studies him for a second. His face is neutral now, careful, but she thinks-

She thinks she saw a flash of guilt when he turned to her.

"You okay?" she asks softly. She's found, lately, that gentleness works better with him; he seems to have more trouble resisting her when she sounds tender than when she orders him around.

He swallows. "Yeah. Yeah, just - thinking about the case."

That's a lie.

And yet she doesn't call him out on it. "Anything you want to share?"

"Ah, not really. I was mostly wondering how anyone could do this to their own son, you know?"

Oh. Yeah.

"We don't know that the dad is responsible," she ventures, hoping that it'll smooth the deep wrinkle in Castle's brow.

It would be so easy to lean in, brush her fingers across it.

He makes a sad, laughing sound that wrecks her heart. "Oh, come on, Beckett. You saw the guy's face. Don't tell me you believe in his innocence."

She parts her mouth to say something, anything that will ease the desolation in his eyes, but before she can find the words - if there are even words - he's sprung to his feet, reached for the mug on her desk.

"I'm gonna make some coffee," he says, sending her a perfunctory smile before he heads to the break room.

Kate watches him, her head tilted, trying to untangle the truth from the . . . not-quite-truth.

She does believe that the case has gotten to him.

She believes that the father in him is revolted by the bruises on their victim's body. Only thirteen years old, with a history of hospital admissions for broken arms and cracked ribs.

But-

No. She doesn't think the case is what he was thinking about when she asked.

What else, though?

And more importantly. Why did he feel the need to lie about it?


	2. Chapter 2

**Mr. Smith Goes to Washington**

* * *

><p>a co-authored fic by:<p>

**chezchuckles**, **FanficwriterGHC**, **International08**, **JeuxDeVagues**, **Sandiane Carter**, and **Topsy**

* * *

><p>Note to self: Kate Beckett doesn't back down.<p>

It's not like Smith didn't know that already. This whole mess reared its ugly head because she kept pushing and pushing.

But this is the first time he's really seen - well, mostly heard - her in action. And now he gets it - why she's a threat.

Smith has kept eyes and ears on both of them, so this morning, when Richard Castle went into a bank with his mother and didn't come out, he was on scene before the contingent from the Twelfth even arrived, bent on making sure his plan didn't go up in smoke.

He watches and he listens, tapping the lines that the NYPD's hostage negotiation team are using so he can keep on top of the situation. Beckett is good at this - solely because she doesn't know the rules, because she blunders right past the obvious caution signs.

She builds rapport with Trapper John over their mutual dislike of the negotiation team's captain; he can hear the bit-back frustration in her voice as she gives in to the bank robber's demands. In exchange, an EMT will be allowed inside to take care of an epileptic hostage.

And then the door to the van opens and she steps out, wearing a paramedic uniform as if she herself-

No. Oh, hell no. Not after everything he's done, all the deals he's cut to keep this stubbornly foolish woman alive.

Can she really be that cavalier with her own life? Maybe she isn't as smart as he thought.

As she heads toward the back of the nearest ambulance for a stretcher, Smith gets out of his car, neatly slips through the crowds, flashes his credentials at the police officer manning the barricade, and heads toward her - the insanely stupid Detective Beckett.

He steps in her way.

Not enough to draw any real attention. Just a fake stumble that knocks her off balance for a moment, slows her down briefly as she steadies the both of them.

"Excuse me, sir," she says, and he hears genuine concern filtering through the haze of stress and irritation at the delay.

He doesn't think of himself as old, nor a gentleman, but he plays up the silver hair, the deep lines in his face, knowing that his suit and trench coat, his presence behind the barricade give him the air of a Captain or some other man in charge. He lays a hand on her arm, gives her his best impersonation of a kindly smile. It's possible he fails at that, judging by the flicker across her face.

"I'm terribly sorry," he drawls. "My mistake."

She nods, but cocks her head to one side, something calculating in her eyes. No time to analyze that though.

"Are you going in?" he asks. Surely there's someone else, someone expendable who won't throw a wrench into all of his carefully laid plans.

Her mouth set in a firm, straight line, the detective gives a slight shrug. "My partner's in there."

She turns away, but he catches her wrist, and she flinches. He withdraws his hand as she looks back at him.

"Good luck then," he offers, hardness in his voice, and her lips tighten - not a smile, but an acknowledgement. "And don't be stupid."

Her nostrils flare, but she turns away from him, looping the stethoscope around her neck, already dismissing him.

He can't stop her, he knows that much, can see it in her eyes. But at least he reminded her. She won't think anything of it, will write it off as a chance encounter with a stranger. But if it makes her pause, makes her a little less likely to act rashly, to let emotions get in the way-

He needs her alive if any of this is going to work.

Smith watches as the detective wheels the gurney into the bank, then sees a few minutes later as she emerges with the sick man.

And then he slides back into his car to listen.

"Listen to me, jackass," she growls, that useless desperation infusing her words, even through the scratchy connection he's got. "I do not control traffic, so you're gonna have to give me twenty minutes."

The two go back and forth, the argument culminating in a threat that he's certain would be carried out. He could see it in her eyes as she stood in front of him in that paramedic's uniform. She will hunt down the man who hurts the ones she loves.

No wonder the Congressman wants her silenced.

The reply from Trapper John cuts through the static. "Okay, Kate, you've got twenty more minutes."

Smith lets out a sardonic chuckle in the silence of his car.

Wise decision, Trapper John.

* * *

><p>Just when he thinks this is getting pointless, there's nothing new to learn - the sniper case catches his attention.<p>

He wonders about the two of them, the way they attract danger like juggernauts - irresistible. It seems to follow them, shadow their every move. So when he hears about the sniper, that they have the case, he pays attention.

He watches her as skulks in a shadowed corner between an old-school barber shop and a little bodega; she comes out of her therapist's office and takes off down the street. Her hands are tucked in the pockets of her leather jacket, shoulders hunched, eyes flickering all around her. There's a wild look about her, something on her face that kicks him in the gut, gets his brain working again. He scents something big, something he can use.

But he doesn't follow Beckett. No.

He goes back to his apartment, sits down in his office, places his steaming mug of coffee next to his keyboard, and gets to work. It's almost too easy to hack into the doctor's computer, to pull up the files for all of his patients. But Smith doesn't care about all of them, just the one.

Ah, yes. The doctor is savvy enough to have his notes digitized. So very helpful.

Smith scrolls through her file, skipping past the patient information and history he already knows, and stops, with a smile, when he comes to the section of notes. The doctor is good, very thorough. Each entry is dated and time stamped, with meticulous personal observations from each session: what they discussed, how Beckett reacted, the questions the doctor asked, the homework he'd given her.

He reaches for his coffee and settles back in his chair for an evening's read.

* * *

><p>"Beckett! Kate!"<p>

Castle watches her run away, watches as she slides through an 'Employees Only' door, ignoring his calls. He hesitates, warring with himself over what to do. He's trying to give her space, trying not to push her on this, to let her work through everything she's struggling with.

He doesn't think he can help her. Not with this. She doesn't need him, doesn't need his reassurances and platitudes and _everything's going to be okay_.

She's drowning, slipping down a slope of memories and fear and a bullet wound. And he thinks—knows somehow—that his presence only makes things worse, only drags her back to that dark place from this summer.

He has plenty of guilt about it. Guilt for not saving her from that bullet, guilt for going behind her back and investigating her mother's murder, guilt for talking to a shadowy man and not telling her.

No, she doesn't need him.

He looks around, tries to figure out what to do, where he might be useful. But he comes up empty. He's just a man, just a writer. Not a cop. The place is chaotic and confusing, everyone scrambling to figure out what happened and what to do next. He can't help here.

He can't help anywhere.

But he can't just stand still, can't just stay frozen and hope someone else writes the scene for him, gives him action, a purpose.

So he does what he always does. He follows her.

Castle slips through the door, walks down the red carpet and cream colored walls through a maze of corridors. He comes to a stop at a T-shaped junction, isn't sure which way to go. So he pauses, holds his breath, and listens.

He can hear choked, broken gasping coming from the left, so he turns that way, treads lightly. He comes to a stop at another corner, can hear her crying just on the other side.

He leans against the wall, rubs his hands over his face, and waits. The sounds of her quiet sobs tear at his guts, twisting them into a tangled knot of agony. A strangled moan cuts through the air and he gives up. It hurts too much; he can't just stand and listen.

He _has_ to go to her.

Castle steps around the corner, his heart breaking when he sees her crumpled on the floor, stripped of her coat and gun and badge. She's bent around her knees, folded in on herself. He notices the bandage on her arm, wonders about it, but before he can say anything, she's noticed him, his shadow falling across her.

She turns away, hides her face from him.

"Castle. Go away."

Her tattered voice makes his heart clench.

"I don't know where to go, Kate."

She swipes at her face, tries to rid the evidence of her tears, but her hands are shaking. "I just need a minute."

"I can't. I'm sorry."

He puts his back to the wall, slides down the floor to sit beside her. He doesn't touch her, doesn't dare, even as much as he wants to. He wants to hold her against his chest, cradle her, but he knows that might not be the best for her right now.

He's not used to the role reversal. She's normally the strong one. He's used to anchoring himself to her, floating around her as she stays in position, a solid bedrock of support.

But things are changing, have been since the shooting. Now she's wavering, her strength waning, and he's stepping up, filling her role. He just hopes she'll anchor onto him, let him be the rock for once.

He can't imagine how she feels, the terror that must seize her every time she walks outside. He's afraid too, so afraid, because he remembers that day in the cemetery all too well. He still remembers, with a vividness that makes him sick, her blood, the metallic taste of every breath as he bent over her.

He still remembers the way her heart stopped in the ambulance, the moment he thought she was gone.

He remembers. And it makes him ever more certain to keep digging, keep searching for her sniper, for the man behind all this. Seeing her break apart only reinforces his sense of purpose, his determination - and his need for secrecy. He can't tell her, can't let her know. She's still not strong enough.

Castle is the one who has to do this. He's the one who has to close this case. Because-

It wasn't his chest, wasn't his heart that the bullet ripped through. And as much as he can imagine it, as easy as it would be for him to write it, he doesn't actually know what that's like. What she must have felt as she lay there in the grass with her life leaking out of her. What she must feel now with the city on edge, the knowledge that there's a sniper out there, crosshairs painting anyone a potential victim - even herself.

So he sits, and he waits, and he doesn't push. He keeps his secrets inside, where they belong. He will not add to her burden.

"Castle," she grates out, half moan and half growling frustration.

"I'm not going anywhere, Kate. Cry, if you need to. Yell, scream, throw something. Hit me, if you want. You don't have to talk, don't have to do anything. But I'm staying right here."

There's nowhere else for him to go.

* * *

><p>After she pretty much destroys the mayor's career, damages - so quickly - her relationship with Castle, Kate Beckett stands in front of her desk and watches her partner fiddle awkwardly with his coat. When she asks Castle what's wrong, he says it's nothing.<p>

It's not nothing.

But she doesn't push; she lets him leave.

So when everyone but Gates has been long gone, Beckett erases the murder board, watches Laura Cambridge's last bit of life disappear, smeared out of existence, and she knows she can't leave everything at loose ends. Not everything.

She can do one thing at least.

Kate heads for his place.

The insistent rain has made her moody, but when she finds a spot close to his building, within view of the front doors, she's not as morose as she was when she started this drive. Laura Cambridge's killer might be a pawn in someone else's game, and Beckett might still not know the person calling the shots - oh, and she might also have brought down the one good, uncorrupted man still left in her city's government, but-

But, _what_? Castle's still here? She snorts at herself, shakes her head in the darkness of her Crown Vic.

It's more soothing than it should be.

But it is something she realizes she holds on to.

Beckett takes a moment, her hands on the steering wheel, trying to gear herself up for darting out in the downpour, heading up to his loft.

They're back to that tentative and careful partnership - the same as they had at the end of the summer. The problem, once again, is that Rick Castle is a loyal man.

Loyal to his friends even when they are being investigated for murder, loyal to her even when she just needs three months to hide, recover, build herself back. Loyal to her even when she's the one investigating those same friends.

And at this moment, late as it is, she doesn't want to do this.

She wants to go home and crawl in bed and not worry about it, not think about the hesitance between them and the way it makes her ache, not think about how doing her job seems to build more walls between them.

But then the front door of his apartment building is opened, the black umbrella snapping expertly above a shielded head, and her heart pounds.

That's. The Mayor. Weldon.

Who is innocent, innocent - cleared of all charges - and probably Castle was just having him over for drinks to say_ I'm sorry my detective girlfriend had to do her job_.

Wait. No. Not his girlfriend, just-

She clenches her hands, white-knuckled, presses her forehead to the wheel. Does she really want to do this when he's spent the last who-knows-how-many hours drinking with the man whose career she set ablaze?

She lifts her head and stares out the windshield at his building.

Things are black and white for her in this job-

Wait. Now Castle is leaving, getting into a town car similar in make and model to the one that Weldon just departed in.

She stares at the black car, peering through the rain as if answers will magically appear on the back windshield. And then - she doesn't even do it consciously - she just puts her car in gear, smoothly inserts herself into traffic.

And she follows him.

* * *

><p>It's stopped raining by the time she slides into a side alley across the street; her palms are slick on the wheel, something strangled in her throat.<p>

Nothing looks right, nothing is level. She feels like her car is parked at a steep angle and her insides keep sliding.

She might vomit. Or go in there and shoot him.

No.

She has a handle on this. It's fine. She doesn't know what he could possibly be doing in that long-term parking garage, but it's Rick Castle. Seriously.

So he has a muscle car he's been hiding from her. A vintage beauty he doesn't keep in the same garage as his Ferrari. Okay. Fine. He can have as many sports cars as he likes-

Beckett's eyes flicker to the left, the first sign of movement on the dark street. A man. A trench coat. Shadows layering shadows.

She knows that man. From where, she can't quite place it, not in this light, but the slope of the shoulders, the smooth gait; she knows him.

He walks the sidewalk carefully, his steps measured, and as natural as it seems, as carefully organic to the situation, she knows he's there for Castle.

The two are meeting. Clandestinely.

A Writer and his Deep Throat.

The older man disappears through the side entrance; she doesn't see his head in the tiny window on the first floor landing, so he must be going down. Deeper into the parking garage.

She pulls out her phone and makes a note of the address, snaps a photo of the sign, memorizes it. How can she not? It's burned in her brain.

She knows that man. She has seen that face. But where?

What does this have to do with the Mayor and the shadowy puppetmaster who was attempting to orchestrate Weldon's downfall?

The rainstorm pelts the roof of her car, suddenly and without warning, and her heart thunders in time. This all feels . . . so very familiar.

The taste of it on her tongue, the shadows, the frustrating wall between her and the truth, Castle keeping secrets.

Just like her mother's murder.

No more. She won't be another pawn in the game, an acceptable sacrifice when she gets too close to the king, no matter what Castle has done, who he meets with in dark and out of the way places after midnight.

She isn't sure this is survivable. But she is sure - she is sure that she has to know.

Mystery Man is now number one on her priority list.

And damn Castle for whatever the hell it is he's doing.

* * *

><p>Beckett parks her unit a few blocks down and doubles back, annoyed at herself for wearing heels that click loudly on the sidewalk. She huddles into her coat and pulls it tighter around her body, stays carefully in the shadows across the street.<p>

As she gets within sight of the parking garage, Castle's mystery man is already leaving. She almost missed him. Their meeting must not have been long.

Beckett follows behind, going slowly, her hands stuffed into her coat pockets, already soaked through in the rain.

Deep Throat uses all the tricks she knows and probably a few she can't spot. Checking his tail in the reflections of store windows, stopping at crosswalks and letting a group of people completely pass him by. After midnight in the city means tourists and party-goers, but it's still plenty of bodies, even in this section of town.

She keeps well back. She doesn't want to be forced to pass him. She's on the opposite side of the street, she stays out of his line of sight, and so when he disappears ahead of her, she's almost sure she's lost him.

Her footsteps slow - only a little - and she darts her eyes around, searching for where Deep Throat might have gone, where he could be hiding.

To buy herself some time, she slows to a stop near a corner and pulls her phone out of her pocket, opens the photo app and uses it as a cover to surreptitiously search the block with her eyes and the lens of her camera. An out-of-business video rental, a fast food restaurant, pawn broker, bail bondsman, parking garage, private library, tourist shop-

She isn't looking where she needs to be, but the car's back window flashes with a reflection of a neon sign as it slides out of its space on the street, dovetails neatly into traffic.

It's Deep Throat at the wheel.

She's on foot, and screwed for a car chase, but she takes a blurry photo of the man's license plate as the car pulls away.

Beckett stares down at the resulting image, her breath burning in her chest, the scar tight. She's not sure what she should do now, not sure where to go with this.

Because if it was anything else, she'd go to Castle.

Only now-

She has no backup.


	3. Chapter 3

**Mr. Smith Goes to Washington**

* * *

><p>He gets the definite feeling that Beckett is mad at him for something. He just doesn't know what.<p>

It's not obvious either. She still talks to him, builds theory with him, gives him a ride home when they've lingered at the precinct for too long.

It's a fleeting, indefinable feeling; it's the looks she gives him when she thinks he isn't paying attention - grave, puzzled looks that draw this cute little wrinkle between her eyebrows - it's the way she sometimes pauses, hesitates in the middle of a smile or a laugh.

Like she's not sure she should laugh with him.

Like she's not sure she can trust him.

But what has he done? Castle keeps reviewing their latest cases, fails to come up with anything real. It's been a while since he's screwed one of their investigations, and the last time they disagreed was over the Laura Cambridge case - over whether or not Weldon was corrupt.

He doesn't think that she was even mad at him for it; she seemed more frustrated with her job, frustrated with having to tell him_ no, Castle, I can't make an exception for your friend_. And he gets it, really. He gets it.

Even Weldon seems to have gotten over it.

So why on earth is Kate Beckett acting so careful around him?

One night, when she parks in front of his apartment building and says, "Goodnight, Castle," without even looking at him, he decides that he's had enough. There have actually been times when honesty's worked well for the two of them. Right?

Right. Still. Into the breach.

"Kate. Did I do something wrong?"

Her head swivels to him, eyes alight with surprise and the glow of streetlights; she presses her lips together, considers him.

"I don't know, Castle. You tell me."

Ah. So she has a reason to be mad. But he's racked his brains, over and over, and he just doesn't see it. "Care to clue me in? Cause I've been thinking about it, and I just-"

"Really? Nothing you can think of?"

Her voice is neutral but guarded; it brings him years back, when they were just starting together. She would always speak to him like that, back then, and he didn't mind. How can it hurt so much now?

"I . . ."

Could she have found out about Smith? he wonders suddenly. He's been careful, oh, so careful - the point is to keep her safe, keep her separate from this. Away from the death-trap that is investigating her mother's murder.

Would she really be so calm about it?

"Yes?"

Her tone isn't soft, but it has some encouragement to it, some eagerness too. And suddenly he finds himself certain that she knows nothing, that she's maybe fishing for information on a simple hunch. He won't walk into the trap; he cannot. It's her life at stake here. Ignorance is bliss.

Ignorance means her heart beating.

"No, Kate. Nothing I can think of."

Her whole face closes up and his heart gives way a little, flutters in his chest, his mind hopelessly grasping for some small thing to tell her - some assurance to give her -

"You know I'd never do anything to screw this up, right?" he says before he's thought it through.

She looks at him from under her eyelashes, reluctant, doubtful.

"What do you mean?"

"Our partnership. You know what it means to me."

_I love you_. It's there, flashing at the back of his mind, and for a second, for a second he's sure he can see it in her eyes too, the cloud of memory, the flash of awareness. And then-

Gone.

She turns her face away, breaks the eye contact. The connection.

Orphaned.

"Alexis is probably waiting for you," she says, and the way she says it, he knows the wall is up, stronger than ever, that there's nothing he can say or do to make it right.

And because he can't leave things like this, although he's not sure what she really knows, he leans in a little and brushes his fingers to hers. Even wrapped tightly around the wheel, her hand trembles imperceptibly. He hears a soft, soft intake of air, but she keeps her head turned away from him.

"Until tomorrow, Kate."

* * *

><p>It's taken Smith years of working his connections within the Agency to be at just the right place, have just the right tools to do what's necessary when Montgomery sends him the file.<p>

He's been planning something like this ever since an unrecognizable suit (who looked like he'd spent his career in an office) took him into a room with no windows and blank walls and said, "We need someone fit. We need someone strong. It's nothing personal."

The Congressman had always been good to him before that moment, had backed him in the power plays at the Agency, had rammed through legislation that funded his black ops. And even though it was his insufferable idiot of an aide who let Smith go, the Congressman had Smith run a few operations - off the books.

Like the CIA, but better.

More power. More money.

Less ethics getting in the way.

Even though he's years out of the Agency, and it's been a long while since the Congressman asked for his help cleaning things up, Smith still thinks in codenames and mission titles. And not because any of those _off the books_ missions are classified - they're more than classified; they're smeared with a thick layer of plausible deniability - but because it's how he's trained to think.

He may have been aged out of the field, but that doesn't mean his mind has gone downhill. Not yet. Not when he's still setting traps and putting pieces in play, yanking others from the board. He's always had a talent for dropping red herrings and erasing tracks, for making the mess disappear. A cleaner.

It's why he's been called useful and why he's been used.

While Smith was spending decades traveling the world, never giving out his real name, always staying off the radar, doing the U.S. government's dirty work, he missed out on some things. Having a family - a wife who missed him, someone he might want to stop lying to. Being a father - being a good father - well, that might've been entirely out of his purview.

Sitting here in his dark office with his receivers and his stacks of old newspapers, masterminding his plan - vengeance and protection and ending the Dragon, the Congressman, finally, he sees clearly that he wouldn't have made much of a father. A terrible role model since violence or cunning is always his answer to solving problems. And he's not sure if loyalty alone would have gotten him through rearing a child. The absentee father isn't much of a father at all.

His life was always what the government made of it. Now, no longer wanted by the government that created him, his life still isn't his own.

Forget the uselessness of a family, those files Montgomery sent him are his ticket to freedom.

Montgomery had saved his life once, and the Captain knew he'd done work for the Congressman - perfect person to hand the baton to, keep the legacy going. So Smith set up the game board, orchestrated his moves. But this isn't where it ends, this won't be the story he writes.

Now he's the one pulling the marionette strings; he's the one watching them dance.

It's been too long since the Congressman took Smith seriously.

Corruption breeds corruption, after all. Don't bite the hand that feeds you - hack it off, then rise up and slit the master's throat.

So tonight he reminds himself that the end goal is in sight, and the game is unfolding as it should. His phone and his sources are quiet and he's left to his listening devices and spyware - which are, like himself, just outdated and clumsy enough that no one at the Agency will miss them, but still clever and useful enough that Rick Castle and friends most definitely will. Miss them, that is.

A voice crackles through and he shifts forward in his seat to listen.

"You can't tell me this is a good idea, Richard."

"I don't see why not."

"Have I taught you nothing about women? Beckett is going to be furious with you when she finds out what you've been doing-"

Doing? He's supposed to be _sitting_ on it. Not doing anything.

There's a long pause and some shuffling.

Smith leans forward.

"Richard, I'm worried. You're playing detective, diving in front of bullets and poking into things that have already gotten other people killed."

Another pause.

Smith curls his hands on the desktop, listening to the digitally recorded conversation.

"You know why I've got to do this, Mother."

"I do. But that doesn't change the fact that you are digging up things you have no right to dig up. That you are knowingly putting your life in danger."

"But Beckett-"

"Beckett is a grown woman. You let her decide where she falls-"

"I don't want her to fall at all. Ever again." And even though Richard Castle's voice is quiet, the steel and determination in it can't be mistaken.

Smith leans back. This isn't going like he thought it would. Richard Castle is inexpertly and clumsily poking his nose into Smith's plan, into his careful machinations, and it's going to make the thing come tumbling down. It's a house of cards as it is.

Yes, he's going to keep his word - protect Montgomery's family like his old combat buddy asked, protect Detective Beckett as well - he is honor and duty bound. But he never promised to keep this mystery writer out of harm's way. He has no loyalty to the fool, and if Castle ruins things-

Richard Castle has a family. A mother. A daughter. Smith has heard and seen, he's experienced the nature of their close relationship. So why Rick Castle thinks he can mess around in this and come away without a stain, without a blemish - he is clearly blind.

Blinded by love, that miserable and self-defeating emotion.

It all comes back to Detective Kate Beckett, doesn't it?

Smith has an end goal.

He will not let Richard Castle ruin this.

It's time to blow this open.

* * *

><p>Beckett can't forget.<p>

The parking garage.

The clandestine meeting.

The man who looks familiar, but she can't think why.

She's forgotten enough this past year - intentionally forgotten - so it's almost ironic that now she's unintentionally remembering the darkness, the intrigue, and Deep Throat's strangely familiar gait.

She can't seem to let it go, the mystery.

That's why Esposito finds her one morning alone at her desk, sorting through photo after photo of every crime scene they've seen this year, ignoring the bodies and instead searching the backgrounds and the edges. Not that she knows what she's looking for. All she has, really, is a feeling.

"We have a case?" Esposito asks, sneaking up on her.

She wasn't fast enough. Then again, she was watching for someone else.

"No case."

Her answer comes too quickly. Now he's suspicious, and she doesn't need anyone else to know about her suspicions yet. At least it's Espo, though. At least it's not Ryan, who's completely in Castle's pocket.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

But all she's sure about right now is that she has a case - a case of a partner gone quiet and a Deep Throat character she must have seen before, and essentially no leads.

Unless.

She watches people all the time, memorizes their gestures and interprets their expressions. More importantly, she remembers those gestures and expressions for later in a case when the story is falling to pieces and they're desperate for anything that might set them back on track.

If she can't remember why Deep Throat's gait seems familiar then there has to have been a good reason.

She must have been distracted.

She might have been in distress.

Which leaves, admittedly, plenty of possibilities.

But at least it's a start.

"Beckett?" It's Esposito again.

"Yeah." She clicks out of the photos, sends her computer to sleep.

"Where's Castle?"

All morning his chair has been empty and her phone has been silent. No case, no partner, even though she'd hinted that she'd enjoy the company, promised she'd beat his high score at one of his new app games and then rub the victory in his pouting, but amused, face.

Where _is_ Castle?

Then it dawns on her.

Where she's seen him before. Deep Throat.

Partner-less in the bullpen, a phone call from him. The hush of his voice, surprise and uh-oh and her name. The bank, the guys in scrubs with guns. When they're together she can protect him, but when they're not –

"He didn't call?" Esposito asks, pulling her from memories.

Partner-less, Castle's phone call, sudden uncertainty.

"No," she says, distracted.

It all adds up to the same memory.

She'd been so busy fighting the pounding in her chest and the sweat on her hands and the voice inside her insisting that she run in that bank because it was _Castle_ that anything beyond the immediate fear wasn't even on her radar screen.

She was headed for him, headed inside, she was going to _do this_ and then-

The man. Old man. Knocking into her.

It had been nothing, less than nothing then. A hand on her elbow, thinly veiled steel behind what she supposed passed for kindness. The face - the face of Deep Throat.

He's been watching her.

Or Castle?

Kate leans back in her desk chair, lifts her eyes to the ceiling. She needs to think.

Deep Throat is - who? Someone secret. Someone who has interest in Castle. Someone who approached her outside that bank-

How in the hell had he gotten past the barriers? It comes over her now, the improbability of that whole situation, and damn it - the way Deep Throat looked so familiar that night, but not. Is that because of a strong word of caution she barely held on to outside the bank that afternoon? Or is it because-

Deep Throat is -

Wait.

_Where is Castle?_

* * *

><p>Castle's heart pounds in his head, painfully aware of how much of an idiot he is.<p>

When he got Smith's phone call to meet, he jumped at the chance. He needs answers - he's got so many questions - and if he can just peel away one more corner of the mystery, maybe he can see underneath all the lies and finally find the truth.

But Smith - it's their usual spot, parking garage - Smith was waiting. And silent. And a lot faster than Castle expected.

He groans and lifts his head from the concrete wall, his vision swimming.

His hands are duct taped; his feet. He thinks Smith knocked him in the side of the head, then punched him in the jaw, but maybe it clipped his nose too. His face feels achingly stiff, caked with blood. One eye swollen shut.

A lot of . . . latent hostility in that beatdown. It felt like punishment, discipline.

A pair of leather dress shoes step into his vision. Castle lifts his head, squints his good eye.

"Outlived my usefulness?" he quips, but it sounds wrong through his swollen jaw.

"More like - you can't leave well enough alone."

"What does that mean?"

Smith is silent, holds up what Castle can see is his own phone. Smith leans in and shows him the screen.

Text message.

To Kate.

_Meet me._

"No," he shouts, but Smith is ripping a piece of duct tape off the roll and slapping it across his face, silencing him.

Castle struggles, trying to breathe through his nose, his chest constricting.

A brutal blow to the side of his face has darkness swamping him again.

* * *

><p>Smith waits, hands in his pockets, just back from the stairwell door. It's the only pedestrian entrance from outside, and it also gives him a clear view of the front where vehicles come through.<p>

Castle looked scared when he'd shown him exactly what his meddling was going to cost. Good. He should be. He should think that Smith himself is just as much a threat as the Dragon.

His plan hinges on keeping these two quiet, damn it. Quiet. They need to sit on their hands and stop messing around in it. He can bring it all down, he can bring the Dragon down, he just needs them to sit down and shut the hell up.

He sees her. There she is.

He and Beckett are going to have some words.

* * *

><p>She has her gun drawn the moment she exits the car. Because this is the parking garage she's seen Castle meet Deep Throat, and Castle texted her - cryptically - and he was missing all morning long.<p>

Because she has a bad feeling about all of this that can't be explained by a hasty text, and her phone call back had gone unanswered - in fact, it went straight to voicemail, and Castle never does that.

She clears the wide front entrance in the Weaver Stance, abruptly changes it to the Center Axis Relock, better for defensive movements, harder for Smith to get her weapon should he be waiting-

She hears the click of the safety the second before she sees him.

And Castle.

Deep Throat's gun is snuggled right up to Castle's temple. A shot like that wouldn't kill him, but it would take out his optic nerves and leave him blind for the rest of his life. He might even recover from whatever ensuing brain damage would result, but-

But-

"I see you understand what's at stake," Deep Throat says calmly.

Castle rouses at that moment, an eye swollen shut, bruises along his jaw. So far, Beckett thinks everything will heal - it's all survivable. Carefully calculated for maximum impact, but no broken bones.

His mouth is duct taped but his eyes are desolate.

She's not sure what that means.

"I see you have my partner. I'm not sure what you're looking for here." She keeps her gun up, doesn't even falter.

"I'm looking to let you in on a little secret."

Castle starts to struggle, a furious and despairing light in his eyes.

Her heart turns to stone.

* * *

><p>He struggles even though it's pointless, even though he must look ridiculous, duct taped hands, duct taped mouth, an eye that won't open, slumped against the concrete wall.<p>

He struggles because he can't think of anything else to do, and if it won't help, at least it presents the advantage of filling his ears with the buzz of effort, the pound of blood, his heart running away from him.

And so he doesn't hear.

He doesn't hear the words that make Kate's eyes grow cold, not green anymore, just this colorless absence of emotion, a dull, dark wall. He doesn't hear the words that make her jaw clench, make her fingers clutch her gun, her knuckles white, her lips white.

Her face white.

Like a beautiful statue. Immovable.

But he knows her. He knows how much this is costing her, putting up this front, pretending none of it affects her. Pretending that she's above it, untouchable.

And he slumps, finally, his head hitting the wall, the great wave of frenzy inside him breaking on her eerie detachment, the strong, graceful line of her chin held high, her unwavering calm. She's taking it all, gritting her teeth through it.

The least he can do is support her.

Quietly, if he has to.

As the sweat on his neck cools, everything comes back into focus. Smith's voice hits him last, an annoying fly in the background that he wants to wave off, all his attention on Kate.

Only Kate.

"So you might want to keep Lover Boy here under control," the man concludes. "Do you hear me, Detective Beckett?"

Her eyes flicker to him, sharp and cutting like stone, before they turn back to Smith.

"I hear you," she says.

"Good."

The garage is filled with the things they don't say.

And then the man is moving away, as brisk as he is silent, and Kate-

She doesn't even try to stop him. Doesn't lift the gun he's made her lower. She just.

Stands there.

This might actually be the thing that pains him most.

She's standing a few feet away, tall and gorgeous like she always is, but she's not looking at him and she's not moving and he's not sure he's ever seen her so-

Brittle.

Not broken, he prays fervently, his one good eye locked on her. Please, please. _Not broken._


	4. Chapter 4

**Mr. Smith Goes to Washington**

* * *

><p>a co-authored fic by:<p>

**chezchuckles**, **FanficwriterGHC**, **International08**, **JeuxDeVagues**, **Sandiane Carter**, and **Topsy**

* * *

><p>When she finally does lift her eyes to him, he wishes she hadn't.<p>

Even alone, the disappointment he reads there would stagger him, trample his heart; associated to the weight of knowledge, the sad resignation that curls at the corner of her mouth - it might just kill him.

But she comes closer, sinks down to her knees in a fluid move, starts working on the tape that binds his wrists.

She's freeing his hands first, he notices inanely. Keeping his mouth for last.

She doesn't want to hear him.

_Have no fear, Beckett_. He has nothing to say.

He can't even begin to think of the words that could make this better. If they exist at all.

She's not gentle with the duct tape; he can feel her anger in the sharp way she tugs. He tries to be brave, tries to be a man about it, but when the tape come off his mouth he cannot contain a yelp.

His face hurts, pulses, sharp and hot.

His shoulders are stiff, too, from being tied up and the awkward position against the wall.

He stumbles when he gets to his feet, has to catch himself on the nearest car. Beckett doesn't offer her help.

She does, however, pause very briefly when she reaches the door of the garage.

He takes it as an invitation to follow.

What else would he do?

* * *

><p>She doesn't speak as she gets inside the car, closes the door, buckles her seat belt.<p>

He doesn't risk a word either. Best take her lead on it.

When he realizes that they're not going back to his place, or hers, for that matter, he shoots a surprised look in her direction.

"Uh. Kate?"

No answer.

Two minutes later, she's maneuvering her car into an empty spot in the parking lot of Bellevue hospital, and, still without a word, she gets out and waits for him.

Seriously? He doesn't need a hospital.

"Kate."

Silence.

Well. He's not really in a good position to negotiate, is he? He sighs.

Hospital it is.

* * *

><p>Although the nurse warns him that it's going to sting, the antiseptic she applies to the open cut on his temple still hurts like a bitch. He bites his tongue so he won't make an even bigger fool of himself and digs his fist into the mattress.<p>

Kate is standing back, hovering at the edge of his vision, but at least she's still there.

And she brought him here.

Which means she cares, right? Which means he can still salvage their relationship. Salvage her trust, or what might be left of it.

And now he finds himself wishing he had listened to what Smith told her. He needs to know exactly what he's up against, which subtle, insidious lies the man might have sprinkled with shiny flakes of truth.

After all, what proof does he have that Smith is who he says he is?

The man did just beat him up. Not the actions of a protector, a guardian.

And worse, much worse - Smith used him to get to Kate.

Castle will never forgive him for that.

The nurse gives him an ice pack for his jaw, suggests that he spend the night in Bellevue, just in case. He declines, glances at Kate in the hope that she'll back him up. She doesn't intervene, but he takes her silence for acquiescence, follows her back out to the parking lot.

He massages his left wrist as he sits back in her car. The skin is chafed, a little raw, and the ice feels actually a lot nicer there than against his bruised cheek. Distracted as he is by his many little cuts and bruises, he takes longer than he should to notice that they're not headed to his place.

They're headed to hers.

Oh?

Well.

Keeping quiet has proved a safe course of action so far. He'll keep it up a little longer.

* * *

><p>The second her apartment door closes and the locks slam into place, she whirls to him, and finally, <em>finally<em> lets it out. The cold fury that's been building in her stomach, sizzling through her chest for the better part of an hour.

It needs out.

"What did you think you were _doing_, Castle?"

Only, he just stands there, mute and dumb, and stares at her. Like he doesn't get it.

"What the hell? You told me to back off, but you're out there acting like an idiot," she growls, advancing on him.

His face pinches, but he still says nothing, only averts his eyes.

"Damn it, you are playing with fire," she says, hands on her hips as she stares at him. He's only halfway inside her kitchen, practically scuffing his foot on the floor like a child.

He glances up at her, opens his mouth, shuts it again, and it's the worst thing he could do. To not even speak up? To not even fight for this? It pisses her off all over again.

"Why can't you just stay in the damn car?"

She turns her back on him, paces to the door, slams the flat of her palm into it, hoping the sting takes off some of the nasty edge to her anger-

"Uh. I - Did you tell me to stay in the car?"

She spins on her heel, stunned by his ridiculous question. He opened his mouth to say that? "It's a metaphor, Castle. Shit. You're a writer. Figure it out."

He blinks, and then his confusion clears and he winces, rubs two fingers down his nose. "Ah. I - I see. Um. When have I ever managed to stay out of trouble even when I do stay in the car?"

Her nostrils flare and he holds up two hands, taking a step back.

"Never mind. Stupid question. I - I'm not thinking so clearly."

A flash of guilt smothers the anger, like water thrown on a forest fire. It doesn't put the flames out, but it does douse them a little.

"Your head hurt?" she asks gruffly, coming closer, biting the inside of her cheek and lifting a hand to touch his face.

He ducks, hisses at his own sudden movement.

"Wait. I'm still mad at you. This is what happens, Castle." She gestures to his face, black and blue and still swelling. "This is why you can't do this. Taking stupid risks for no reason. What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking it's better than you getting shot," he says.

She goes still, sucks in a shallow breath, sees the flint in his eyes. He's getting pissed too. Good. She wants to fight him, not cry over him.

"I have the gun, Castle. Not you."

He shrugs off her touch, steps away. "I know I'm not a real cop. Would everyone stop pointing it out to me like I don't know that? This is about more than just your job-"

"Wait." She holds up her hand, panic scrabbling at her insides. "Who - who is everyone? Who else is telling you not to do this?"

His face blanks, but she knows. She knows.

"Your mother. And - and Alexis. That's - that's why," she groans, presses a hand to her eyes. Shit. Shit, Castle. What the hell?

"They - I - yes."

"You need to stop," she says quietly, forcing as much strength into her voice as she can manage. She keeps getting diverted by these new bits of information he springs on her, these things that make her heartsick, and she can't - it can't be about that. She has to hold on to her anger.

"Kate-"

She turns, pointing a finger at him, stalks forward. "No. You need to stop. This is my mother's case, Castle, and we already know-"

"I know. I know this isn't - this is yours, this is personal. And please believe me, Kate, I'm not trying to take it away from you. But it's my fault you're in it anyway. And I can't let you - I can't watch you do this, kill yourself, because they will kill you. Did he tell you that? Did he explain that? They'll kill you."

"They'll kill _you_, you stupid, stupid man." She pushes on his shoulder with her finger, harder than she meant, and he catches her by the wrist, his face twisting.

"I'm getting somewhere Kate. Obviously, Smith thinks so, if he's-"

She shakes her head, stunned by his mulish idiocy. "Look at me. This isn't about how good you are at solving mysteries. This is about life or death. You - aren't - replaceable. You can't-"

"Wait. Are you mad at me because I'm doing it behind your back, or-"

"No! I'm furious as hell that you're doing it at all. When you _know_ the consequences. You know this could end your life. Have you not been paying attention to me at all? Everyone dies, Castle."

And then she nearly does. Break. She comes very close, feels her voice cracking on his name and has to close her eyes, take a long breath in, a hand to her chest and pressing hard.

Suddenly his arms are wrapped around her, tightly, crushing her into him, and she doesn't want it, can't want it, needs to get away from him before she really does cry, but it's too good. She needs it - needs him safe-

"I won't die."

It's a worthless promise to make, but even so, she feels better for hearing it. "You can't do this," she says. And then it hits her, stuns her, and she's pissed off all over again.

"Kate-"

"Damn it. Damn it." She struggles back, pushing away, anger flaring up again. "And look - this is exactly what he wants. He wants me afraid enough to shut you down, running scared."

Castle just stares at her, infuriatingly silent.

"Forget it," she hisses. "I'm not going to be a pawn in his game. I've been digging into this-"

"You've what?" he gasps.

"I followed him after he met you-"

"What? When? Beckett-"

"Don't Beckett me. You were sneaking off to meet up with shadowy informants-"

"Trying to protect you-"

"I don't need you to protect me-"

"You need_ someone_!"

She closes her mouth. She needs someone.

He stops, stares at her.

She takes a long moment to assess, a mental step back, and then she sucks in a breath and dives in. "I need my partner. Not the Lone Ranger. If you do this at all, you do it with me."

Castle looks like he's going to fight her on that, but then he nods. "Partners."

* * *

><p>They're not quite back to normal, if they've ever had a normal to begin with. But they're working together, and for now, it's enough. It has to be.<p>

It's more than enough, really, because they're going to take these bastards down, and whatever happens afterward, well, they'll figure it out later. As it is, she's sitting too close for the usual Beckett, her thigh pressed against his as they sit at her desk.

It's late, bordering on morning already. Gates has been gone for hours, and they managed to send the boys away at eleven. He doesn't know what strings Kate pulled with Lanie to get Javi out; the detective has been suspicious. Ryan too.

But it's not their fight. It's not their team right now. It's just them - partners. It's just Kate pulling up Smith's number from his phone, feeding it into the database, tracing the call logs for his cell phone. He's not really sure how she's doing it, not sure it's legal, but soon, she's got an address.

Smith's calls come from an apartment on the upper east side, nice neighborhood, clean area. Just an average well-off guy, quietly pulling strings and setting traps.

"We got him," she says quietly, her voice somewhere between fierce and cracking. Just looking at her he can see the strain, can see her trying not to fall apart. But she wants to do this together, as a team, a unit, a partnership.

Against his better, saner instincts, he reaches out and puts his hand on her knee, curling his fingers. "We got him," he repeats.

She glances over at him and nods, doesn't dislodge his hand. Maybe they're better than he thought. She turns back to the computer, jots the address into her phone and then changes programs.

"What are you doing?"

"Putting a trace on his car," she says tightly, tapping in a license plate number.

"How do you have the license plate's number?" he asks, confused.

"Followed him on foot, saw him pull out," she replies, distracted. Why didn't he ever think to do that? "It's because I'm the cop," she adds, giving him a sardonic look as he peers over her shoulder.

Yeah, she's kind of scary like this. "You can trace him without people noticing, without calling attention to it?"

"He's got Onstar," she says easily.

"How are we keeping this from Gates?"

"You gonna tell her?" she asks, all business. Maybe there's a hint of playfulness. Maybe he's imagining it.

He puts on a show anyway, needing to hold on to this part of their usual banter. "I'm insulted."

She shakes her head and turns back to the computer, hitting enter on the keyboard. The program is triangulating his car based on the GPS. "He's moving," she says a minute later as a little dot pops up on the map - Smith.

"I won't be telling Gates, but the computer might," he says timidly as they watch Smith stop at Macy's. How mundane. Even after all these years, he still kind of expects men who pistol-whip people to do more…dastardly things.

"Gates monitors us, not our searches," she tells him, leaning back in her chair. "Now we keep tabs on him for a while, learn his routine."

"And we wait," he says, completing the thought.

She grits her teeth, and he startles as her hand falls to curl onto his. "And we learn," she insists. "And once we know the coast is clear - we search his apartment."

* * *

><p>"Kate." He stops her with a hand around her elbow just as she's about to push through the door at the top of the stairwell, head into the hallway of the floor Smith's apartment is on.<p>

Two weeks of surveillance, checking the GPS map surreptitiously at work, planning this out, and he's stopping her now?

She turns to look at him, impatient.

"I don't know if this is a good idea," he murmurs.

"We know he's not home, Castle; we tracked his car to the other side of town."

He sighs, nodding. "I know, I just—what if we find something?"

"Isn't that why we're here?" She rolls her eyes at him and shrugs his hand off her elbow.

"What if we find evidence that won't hold up in court because we obtained it illegally?"

"Castle, I think we're beyond that with this guy. Whatever we find - I just want a name. I need the name. I need to know who did this."

He shakes his head. "The name won't do you any good if we can't also bring him down. We need something we can take to Gates and-"

She turns on him, poking his chest with a finger. "If we tell Gates, it'll bring everything into the open, Montgomery and - and everything-"

"Kate. I just want it to be right. I don't want to lose our chance at justice because you - we - because we're doing it like this." Castle steps forward, reaches up to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. His thumb brushes her cheekbone and she struggles not to shiver, struggles not to show him just how much his touch affects her. His hand drops.

She bites the inside of her cheek and takes in a deep breath, tries to get back on track. "Honestly, we're probably not going to find anything. He's too smart. But doing this—maybe it puts a wrench in the works, throws him off his game. We're not backing off; we're not going to bow to him just because he threatens us." She stops, gives him a long look. "But we're partners. And we do this - only if you want to."

She struggles to let him answer, to hold back, because she does mean it - they're partners and they ought to do this together and - and it's his life on the line here too. But she's come too far, seen too much to back down now. They have to do this, have to push him, because the more they push, the closer he'll come to breaking. And if he breaks, they might be able to end this. Find her mother's killer, stop all of it. Get on with their lives.

She wants it so bad she can taste it.

So when he nods at her, straightens his spine, she breathes a sigh of relief.

"Let's go, Castle."

* * *

><p>At Smith's door, Kate pulls the lock-picking gear out of her jacket pocket, the fine and delicate tools in their lined case. She's done it before in LA, but this feels so much worse on her home turf-<p>

Castle steps past her, taking the case from her, and gets down on his knees to look at the lock. She arches an eyebrow at him, but she knows he thinks he's protecting her, that if it comes down to it, an NYPD cop inside the city limits picking a lock is so not a good idea. So she leans against the wall, looks everywhere but at him as he does it instead.

"Kate."

The door is open.

"I did it." His grin is contagious, and she smiles back, alight with memory, but her stomach churns with the idea that he isn't entirely comfortable with this and yet he got down on his knees and broke the law for her. The things he's willing to do - just for her - the risks he's willing to take-

He must see it on her face, because he rises from the floor and nudges her hip with his, tries to be playful. "C'mon, Nancy Drew, let's get in there."

Her lips twist, press together in one of her signature _I'm-not-going-to-smile-at-you_ grins, and she reaches for her gun. "We know he's not here, but let me clear the place anyway, all right?"

Castle nods, lets her slip into the apartment ahead of him. She hears him shut the door quietly, and then he sticks close as she steps from room to room, ready for trouble. All clear. She nods at him, holsters her weapon.

They step into Smith's office together.

"You search his desk. Don't forget to check his computer, though I'm sure he's got it password protected. Oh, and Castle? Don't worry about being neat. I want him to know we were here."

Castle smiles at her, eyebrow quirking, and then hunkers down in front of the desk.

She steps around him, starts rifling through a cherry-wood credenza across the room. They search in silence for a few minutes; the only sounds emanate from their sliding of drawers and shuffling of papers. And then—

"Beckett." "Castle." They speak at the same time.

She turns to look at him and he's holding a folder in his hand, a stricken look on his face. She frowns and holds out the device in her palm. "What'd you find?"

He swallows hard, eyes not daring to meet hers. "You're not going to like it."

"Castle," she snorts. Of course she's not going to like it. She's not going to like much of anything they find here.

He walks over, hands the folder to her. She trades him, handing him the device.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asks, holding it up to inspect it.

She jerks her thumb over her shoulder, directs him to the open drawer behind her. "Look in there."

She steps away from him, opens the folder to see what he's found. Her stomach drops. It's her file from Dr. Burke's office.

Everything's here, every note the doctor has ever taken on every conversation they've ever had. Private moments, things she hasn't even told her father, told Castle, told anyone. Except Burke.

These are things no one else should know.

It fills her chest, cuts off her air. She snaps the file shut, her fingers clenched around it, the quiet rage flooding her, battering.

Castle turns back to her, takes one look at her face and probably sees it all. He steps closer, hand hovering in the air between them, an unfinished gesture of comfort. She's not sure he can help right now.

"He probably hacked into the file, Kate."

She knows that. She _knows_ that. Does he think it makes her feel any better?

She remembers Smith's cold eyes, pictures them going through the file, her life taken apart, split open, dissected by this man. Her fears, her feelings, the bare bones of her.

Things she hasn't even told Castle yet. Things she's going to tell him, soon, eventually, when it's right, when it's-

"Did you read this?" she asks, frozen with the sudden idea.

"No. I didn't, Kate. I wouldn't-"

She nods, breathes again, averts her eyes for second. "No. I know. Not on purpose, but if you didn't know what it was-"

"I didn't. I saw Dr. Burke's name at the top, and I closed it."

Good. Okay. That's - at least there's that.

Damn. "I hate him," she grits out.

"He's playing around with our lives," Castle says, his hand squeezing over the receiver for the listening devices.

They aren't human beings to him. They're pawns, little playthings to deal with however he might see fit. Fictional characters, like Nikki Heat. Except-

Castle is gentler with Nikki than this man has ever been with them.

She sways, her guts churning, the fury receding into a bone-deep weariness, a sudden need to sit down, stop and rest. Does it ever end?

"Kate."

It takes Castle's hand curling on her neck to make her realize she's closed her eyes. His fingers are thick and warm and strong, soothing against the fine hair at the nape of her neck; they make it easier to breathe, easier to swallow past the acrid taste in her mouth.

When she opens her eyes, he's looking at her, calm and confident, fire in his blue gaze.

"He doesn't know you," he says.

She stares back at him, his beautiful, open face, the fierceness of his love. For her.

He loves her.

She knows that.

She swallows, forces herself to move on. "Did you see all that equipment?"

He nods slowly, drops his hand. "So he's been listening in. You think he's taped us?"

"Didn't see any tapes, but we can't be sure. Just the equipment is bad enough."

Castle's thoughtful look turns into a grimace of displeasure. "How did he get into our apartments? Better yet, _when_ did he get in?"

He takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair, and she knows he's worried about his daughter, his mother.

"I don't know, Castle," she says softly, and her tone must catch his attention because he looks up, meets her gaze. "Maybe I'm wrong. There's a bug sweeper in there. Take it, and we'll use it at our apartments, the precinct. Get rid of the listening devices. I'll have the guys in tech go over my car, too."

Relief smooths out the wrinkles on his face. "Right."

She watches him go back to the listening station, pick up the device and pocket it. Something of a smile spreads in her chest, a flickering warmth, a sense that everything might still be okay.

She was right. It's better. Better to do this together; they can keep each other going.

"Were you able to get on his computer?"

"No. Password protected."

She nods. "Was there anything else in the drawers, anything that might look like the files Montgomery sent to him?"

Castle sighs, shakes his head. "He must have another place he hides things, a safe, maybe."

"Why don't you check for one? I doubt we can crack it, but maybe we'll get lucky. We do have a pretty good lock-picker on our hands."

He grins at her, child-like, as if this is the best compliment she could ever give him.

She ignores it as best as she can, but she knows he can see her smile even through her closed lips. Focus, Kate.

"I'll check the other rooms, see what I can find. But it looks like this is his main workspace, so I don't think I'll find much of anything."

"Doesn't hurt to try."

They search the entire apartment from top to bottom, not bothering to be neat and tidy about it. They want him to know they were in his space, want him to know what he's up against.

"Beckett."

"Yeah?"

"I just got an idea." He pauses once more in the living room and she turns her attention to him.

"Yeah?"

"What if we plant one of his own bugs in here? We take some of his equipment, hell, let's take all of it. If we take all of it, maybe he'll just think we're trying to stop him from listening in on us. But if we plant one of those extra bugs here, maybe he won't notice, at least for a little while. And we can listen in on him, see if _he_ reveals something."

She smiles, wide and pleased with him, with his wonderful, beautiful brain. "I could kiss you right now."

He grins. "You know, you've said that to me before, Beckett. One of these days I'm hoping you'll follow through."

She heads back to Smith's office, tosses a sly, sexy smile over her shoulder. "Be careful what you wish for, Castle."

He sputters, a hand to his chest, his eyes wide and round and pleased with her as he follows her into the office. "If that's all it takes, Beckett, I'm going to wish on every star I see tonight. Throw a hundred bucks worth of pennies into that fountain outside the precinct-"

She laughs, long and delighted. "C'mon, let's get this bug planted so we can get the hell out of here."

* * *

><p>It's February, and he's freezing his ass off, but Smith waits until she's well outside her walls of safety glass, heavy doors and overprotective colleagues to catch her alone, unprepared, and already emotionally reeling outside Dr. Burke's office.<p>

He pushes her into a nearby alley, traps her hands between her back and the building and silences her with one hand over her mouth and a gun barrel in her stomach.

He relishes the action, the way she snaps at his fingers with her teeth, growls into his palm, but stills the moment she feels the muzzle of his gun.

"Detective Beckett," he murmurs, feels her shudder back in anger. "You never learn, do you?"

He pushes the gun into her gut once, hard, for emphasis.

"Tracking my car? Breaking into my place? Well done. Really well done." He grins for effect. "But you should know better, Detective. Castle might not, but you should know better."

She struggles again and he pushes back harder, slams her against the side of the building until her head hits the brick, her eyes water. Satisfaction pulses through him at this sense of control regained, this rush of raw power in the semi-darkness and isolation.

He's missed it, being back on top.

This will be good for both of them.

He'd yelled, slammed his fists against the desk and cursed for hours when he'd found his place ransacked, his papers littering the floor, his equipment gone. And when his knuckles ached and every breath tore at his throat he'd sat down in his chair and leaned back. Let his head clear. Set his jaw. Rechecked some addresses. Went back to work. Made a plan.

He's a professional, retired or not.

He still has a gun and a brain and a knack for intimidation.

"Remember the parking garage? Your partner crushed against a wall with my gun at his temple? Do you know what could have happened if I hadn't been merciful that night? I could have shot him point blank, right in front of you, and his blood would have spattered across your face."

Her eyelids slam shut and she goes limp for a second.

But he's ready when she tenses again and shoves a foot into his knee.

He can take it.

He knows how this works.

"I could have ended him in a heartbeat." He pauses, but doesn't have to wait long for her breathing to stop. "And I know - it would have ended you with that same bullet."

She cries out, but it's muffled and no one can see them back here and all of her safety nets - her many, many safety nets - are temporarily gone.

"So the next time you think you're being clever, tracing me, breaking and entering, digging through things that aren't yours, think again."

He waits until her eyes open, stare at him in pain and frustration and everything he wants her to feel right now, and it's so good. It's so damn good.

"Because if I can do that to my son once, I can do it again. And I'm not one to be twice merciful."

He throws her down and steps out of the alley, leaving her stunned and gasping on the cold, hard ground.  
><strong><br>**Mission accomplished.


	5. Chapter 5

**Mr. Smith Goes to Washington**

* * *

><p>For weeks, she obsesses over those words, day in and day out, dismissing them one moment, worrying her lip in a surge of anxiety the next.<p>

_Because if I can do that to my son once-_

She doesn't even care about the threats, about the gun shoved in her stomach hard enough to bruise, about the disturbing image of Castle's brains spread over a garage floor.

That's all secondary now. Irrelevant almost.

_Because if I can do that to my son._

She has to own it; the man looks familiar, and not just because she briefly ran into him when she was wheeling a gurney into that bank. The way he holds himself, the way he walks, the large, skillful hands.

The cold grey eyes are nothing like Castle's, but the line of the jaw, the broad shoulders-

She mulls it over in her head at night, curled up into her bed, her fingertips inches from the gun she has to keep under her pillow now.

Obeying Smith's instructions and slowing the investigation down proves easy enough. The listening device picks up next to nothing - Smith doesn't talk to himself, doesn't talk in his sleep, and his phone conversations are stilted and cryptic. The couple times they do see his car, either they're on a case and don't have the opportunity to follow him, or he loses them - she doesn't even have to fake it.

Castle doesn't seem to have noticed anything. Yet. She-

She doesn't know what to tell him.

She's the one who said they should work together. Share information. But that's exactly her problem: this is not information, it's . . . a lie. A cruel lie. It has to be. It's just an attempt at destabilizing them, at splitting their focus.

She has no idea how Castle would react to it.

_Do that to my son._

But what if it's true?

* * *

><p>After Castle asks Agent Danberg if the man knows anything about Castle's father working for the CIA, Kate knows that she can't keep quiet any longer.<p>

His voice may be casual, nonchalant even, but she can tell how deep it runs. How affected he is.

She's never completely bought the _I don't care who my father is, I'd rather be able to invent him_ act, but damn, this is not what she wants for him - she doesn't want Sophia Turner's last, insidious jab at him to actually turn out to be true.

And yet it makes sense.

Smith, if they're right, is a former CIA operative. He doesn't work for the agency anymore; there's no apparent reason for him to be in contact with Sophia. The woman was full of lies, this much is clear to Beckett, but-

Her last words to Castle might actually have been the truth.

And they point to Smith.

Everything does.

Oh God. What is she supposed to tell him?

* * *

><p>"Castle," she says quietly. "We need to talk."<p>

Even over the phone she hears him freeze, can picture the look on his face. She'd gone home from the precinct, thought it over, and finally decided she couldn't put this off any longer, not without making it worse.

"Okay," he murmurs after a moment. "Okay. Do you want to talk now or would you rather do it in person?"

She sighs. She wants to get this done, wants to just rip off the bandaid. Still, she owes him more, owes it to him to be there for him, to catch him after the inevitable fall.

"Can you come over?"

* * *

><p>When she opens the door, he pastes a smile on his face, but it holds none of the excitement, the happiness she usually sees in his eyes, just the weary resignation of a man on his way to the gallows.<p>

She pulls him inside, wrapping her fingers around his forearm, closes and locks the door behind him.

"Hey," she greets him finally, trying to infuse comfort into the word as she turns around.

His eyes lighten a bit at her voice, and his smile becomes genuine and tender. "Hey."

She's still thinking, still considering her next move, so when she heads into her apartment, she's grateful he doesn't wait for an invitation to follow. Of course, when has he ever?

He hesitates though, when they reach the couch. She nods toward it, but he doesn't sit down.

"Sit, Castle," she commands, and though she's certain her tone brooks no argument, he gets that stubborn look in his eyes and stays standing.

"What-"

She cuts him off, lifting both hands to push against his shoulders, forcing him down to the couch.

"Why, Detective," he drawls, grinning up at her. "If you wanted to have your way with me, why didn't you just say so?"

She shakes her head and his face rapidly sobers.

"Beckett. What is it?"

She paces for a moment, but every time she catches sight of him he looks more and more concerned. Finally, she perches herself on the coffee table across from him, their knees not quite touching, and meets his gaze.

"A couple weeks ago," she begins quietly, clears her throat, lends the necessary strength to her voice. "A couple weeks ago, Smith caught up to me after a session with my therapist."

Castle's face blanches but he says nothing.

"He got the drop on me. Told me we'd better back off," she says, seeing in her peripheral vision the way his fists clench at his sides, clench and then slowly release.

"He wasn't happy we were in his place," the writer muses.

She lets out a humorless laugh. "Of course not, Castle. And he definitely let me know." She rubs her hand across her stomach, grimacing. "He knows we've been tracking his car too."

"How?"

She shrugs. "He said we should have known better. Or _I_ should have known better."

Her partner grimaces. "He certainly doesn't think much of me."

"He underestimates you," she says, voice quiet but fierce.

His lips curl in a not quite smile, as if he can't allow himself to take pleasure in her words, not right now. "What else?"

"He described in graphic detail how easy it would have been to shoot you on the spot," she says, stomach churning even now with the images Smith's words evoked."How easy it would have been to destroy my life too."

His eyes flash to meet hers, stricken, but his voice is calm. "You really think he'd do that? Wouldn't that screw up his plan - killing us?"

Beckett shrugs, tilting her head. "I don't know. That's what I thought, but maybe he's running something we don't know, some master plan that doesn't ultimately involve us."

He sighs, defeated. "I'm sure there are a lot of things we don't know."

She nods. He doesn't know just how right he is. "There's something else, Castle. It's-"

He leans forward when she pauses, and she takes a deep breath. "He said if we didn't leave it alone, he wouldn't be merciful to his son again. Next time he'd kill you."

The writer lifts a hand, pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

She's not sure what to make of the expression on his face. "I - I didn't know if it was true."

"I think he's proven he's capable of anything," he sighs. "I'm sure he'd kill me in an instant if he thought I wasn't useful anymore."

"Castle," she calls, waits for him to open his eyes again. "Did you hear me? He said you were his son."

He straightens, drops his hand, looking at her in disbelief. "That's ridiculous."

"Is it?"

His brows furrow. "Kate . . ."

"I couldn't figure out why he seemed so familiar," she says, watching her partner closely. "Why it seemed like I knew him."

He shakes his head. "No, it's . . . no. You said he ran into you outside the bank."

The one time she needs him to believe a ridiculous theory, he refuses. She can't blame him. "Castle, look. I had my doubts, and that's why I didn't say anything until now, but after what Sophia said about your father being in the CIA. . ."

He stands, something like betrayal written on his face as he looks down at her. "Now you think she was telling the truth? But you said it yourself - she told a lot of lies."

She watches as he steps past her, turning his back on her. She gets to her feet. "I know I said that, but-"

He stops, whirls to face her. "But what?"

She stands her ground. "But what would be the point of telling you that?"

"Other than to get to me?" he scoffs, jaw tightening.

"Why would she need to get to you, though?" she counters, voice rising to match his. "If Danberg hadn't shown up, she would have killed us both."

He deflates - his shoulders sag, his fists unclench, and he drops heavily back to the couch, all the angry tension whooshing out of him at once. His voice is low when he speaks. "You're right. She would have killed us. But do you really think-"

She meets his pleading eyes, nods - resolute, if reluctant. "I do. I think it could be true."

"You said he seemed familiar."

She resumes her earlier spot across from him, sitting heavily. "Yes. The first time I saw him. There was something."

"What?" he asks.

She lifts one hand to gesture at him. "I don't know, Castle. The way he walked. The shape of his jaw. Little things."

"Why didn't I notice?" he asks, his tone still disbelieving.

Kate shakes her head, quirks her lips. "And with as much time as you spend in front of the mirror too . . ."

He lets out a puff of air that might be a laugh, glares at her. "Thanks, Beckett."

"I'm just saying," she continues. "Sometimes other people notice things about us that we never notice ourselves. I mean, my dad-"

He tilts his head to one side when she pauses, waits out the sudden rush of emotion that has clogged her throat. "My dad tells me how much I look like my mom, but I have a hard time seeing it."

Castle sighs, drops his head into his hands. "Okay, but I'm sure I look like any number of people. I mean, by that rationale Jason Bateman could be my father."

She can't help laughing at that, but he's deflecting, and if they're going to do this together, she has to convince him, has to make him understand. Her mother's case, her own life - they are no longer the only things at stake here.

"It wasn't just his looks, Castle," she says firmly. "He sounds like you too. He has your way with words. Your hands are the same."

He looks up sharply. "My hands?"

She nods, closes her eyes briefly against the memory of Smith holding Castle hostage, opens them again to find his stare drilling into her. She doesn't want to say,_ He holds a gun the way you do_. "Just - I have it burned into my brain - in the parking garage."

His face turns ashen. "Kate..."

"He used you against me," she begins, trying to get a handle on the thought of a man turning on his son - his son - but Castle bolts to his feet, startling her, running a hand through his hair. He looks like he might be sick.

She stands, realizes how this paints him. "Castle, you didn't do anything wrong-"

"Except being his son?" He stares at her, needing something.

"You're nothing like him," she says fiercely. "I know you think you were trying to keep me safe by hiding it from me. You weren't the one shoving a gun in my stomach." She rolls her eyes, trying to lighten the mood.

His face blanches; he stalks toward her with an intense look, and she steps back. She didn't mean to let him know.

He follows and then his hands are at her waist, lifting her shirt, the warmth of his fingers ghosting over the still mottled skin.

Every instinct tells her to pull away, but he looks up, tenderness and regret and barely chained fury radiating from his eyes. She lets him touch, just for a moment, lets him soothe the wounds he didn't inflict.

It's too much.

It's too much, and if she doesn't end it now, she won't be able to hold on. And she has to hold on, has to finish this, not just for herself, because she needs justice, but for him now too. They have to finish this. Together.

She pries his fingers away from her flesh, squeezes them briefly, and pulls down her shirt. "You're not him," she says.

She wishes he would believe her.

* * *

><p>Smith fingers the edge of his phone as he watches Beckett leave the apartment.<p>

He hasn't replaced the listening devices - they still have his equipment - and he's pretty sure it would just be a waste of time. He doesn't like not knowing, but he thinks it's time for the next step.

He's fairly certain that Detective Beckett has followed his orders, backed off, but she doesn't seem like the type to lie down and take it - not for long. If anything, he's afraid she's tried to come up with a new plan.

When Beckett has cleared the block, Smith slips out of the shadows and heads for her building. He uses the key he made to get inside the lobby, then takes the stairs slowly to her floor. Once there, it's an easy route inside her apartment with the door finally shut behind him.

He finds her evidence quickly enough: accordion shutters that fold out into a neatly-lettered display of her mother's murder. The windowsill is dusty, so are the individual slats in the shutters, which makes him think she's not looked at it in a good long while.

"Very good," he murmurs, closing the shutters.

He snoops on her computer, tries a few passwords, but she's too smart to use the obvious ones. Must be a number/letter combination. He glances around her desk, being careful to leave everything as he finds it, the papers exactly positioned. She's set up the usual traps - salt in the envelopes, thin strips of tape on the drawers, even a hair caught in the bottom drawer's hanging files. He replaces the lone hair when he's finished perusing the banality of tax returns and instruction manuals.

He finds a gun in her closet he didn't know she had - and unregistered and well-crafted weapon. It reminds him that Detective Beckett, a woman who might appear to play by the rules, often has her own agenda.

Well, so does he. And it doesn't have any room for a woman who can't sit down and shut up.

So while it appears that the two of them haven't gotten any further on her mother's case, he can't be certain. They might not have a plan, or any real clues to follow, but they fight back.

He needs to see the Congressman and lay it all out for him - the evidence, the cost of doing business with Smith, the way things will go from now on.

Once he's firmly in control of the Congressman's rather clever empire, Smith will be back where he belongs -

in power.

He can handle Beckett then - once and for all.

* * *

><p>When Castle slides an envelope across her desk a few days later - a few days of brushing off her phone calls with flimsy excuses of "There's a meeting" or "Have some writing to do" or, when she really presses him, "I'm listening, okay? I'm listening" - dread slams into her chest.<p>

It's been hovering ever since she called him over, tore his heart out with her information and tried to patch it back up again with reminders of who and what he has, who and what have him.

She thought it went about as well as it could have gone. She realizes later she was wrong.

He's been attached to the 'fancy spy equipment' for days now, though not for the novelty or the coolness factor this time, but in real curiosity, real dread, looking too much like her now as he slumps in his chair by her desk, waves half-heartedly at Esposito and urges her silently, eyes sliding to the envelope then back to her.

So she ignores the pounding in her ears. Slits it open.

"What -" she says, when she's fingered the staple and sucked in air and still comes up empty. "What is this, Castle?"

He bought plane tickets.

Two of them.

She checks them again, swallows. From JFK to Dulles, leaving tomorrow at dawn.

"Castle."

His name comes out low, a warning. She knows he needs support - her support - right now. But this, what is this? Why does it make her skin crawl?

"I heard something. On the listening device."

He leans in, drops his voice but it's already cracking and he looks like he hasn't slept in days and she just wants to brush his hair off his forehead and smooth the lines around his eyes, but he bought plane tickets because he heard something. Oh, no.

They've been through this before. She's been through this before.

Back then, she was the one with the haunted eyes and the hard mouth, but she hadn't shared with him, hadn't wanted his help, not until he showed up on her flight and she was stuck with his rented Ferrari, his love-nest hotel suite, and his solid presence at her side.

"Since he came after you, he's made himself completely unapproachable," Castle continues. "Even his apartment has been fortified; I guess since we know where it is. I'm sure he's been watching us, Beckett, even closer than before. But I need to..." He stops, runs a hand along his jaw.

"You don't, though. You don't need to, Castle." The moment she says it the hypocrisy is ash on her tongue.

"He's leaving later tomorrow to meet up with someone, and once he's in DC he'll be accessible again. I can get to him. I can - he won't be expecting me - us - there." He draws himself up. "I need to . . . I just - I need to talk to him; I need answers. You should know how that feels, why it's important to me."

Her throat burns.

He's right, of course - she should know. She _does_ know. Only, that time Kate had the gun and the training and at least _a_ badge, if not exactly the right one. This time? Castle can't go chasing down a man who beat him up and threatened to kill him, regardless of who that man claims to be.

Except he will; he plans on doing just that.

But they're in this together now. He shouldn't, and she damn well shouldn't be encouraging this, but-

"There are other ways," she says finally, her last ditch effort to sway him. "We could..."

"Wait?" His eyes darken. "I think I've waited long enough."

"We could talk to Martha."

"No." The word is guttural, instinctual, wracked in pain.

She sees it, the need to protect his family, the ready forgiveness and the love that ties it all together. And she remembers that ache in her chest, her Captain's warning to wait it out, and her teeth-clenched lie - her jacket streaming behind her as she left.

Tunnel vision. Took her right out to L.A.

Castle crashed her flight, hijacked her accommodations, saw that she didn't fall over the edge, and followed her all the way from one coast to the other because he -

Because he -

"Two tickets," she says. "Awfully presumptuous."

"Yeah," he breathes. There is no smile.

The room seems to go quiet around them as they sit and stare, plane tickets on the desk between them, his whole body tight with questions he needs answers to, hers thrumming with foreboding. Nothing good can come of this.

He is chasing after a man who will do anything.

"How much do I owe you?"

He slumps, a palm over his mouth, eyes falling shut.

"Coffee," he rasps, opening his eyes again and finding hers. "Tomorrow morning in the airport."

* * *

><p>Coffee at the airport turns out to be too sweet and too hot in too thin paper cups as they stand in line for boarding, their breathing ragged, bags slung over their shoulders only half-zipped.<p>

They almost missed the flight.

Almost, because even though the sun was breaking the horizon outside her window when Castle showed up at her apartment door impatient, shocked that she hadn't finished packing, more tightly-wound than she thinks she's ever seen him, she still insisted on buying him coffee.

She insisted with fingers wound around his wrist because she could see the way he completely missed the coffee cart on the way to their gate - looked right through it and kept walking. Even though it was - it is - kind of their thing.

Tunnel vision.

It doesn't look pretty, does it, Beckett? She knows she's a hypocrite, knows it, can't do anything to combat the truth of that except try to bring him around to sensible thinking, try to keep him on an even keel.

So she led him to the counter, gave both their orders and kept her hand on his arm to make sure he didn't try to run off without her while they waited. If he was surprised, he didn't say anything. She didn't either. When the coffee came in two white cups on the dark, sticky counter she took both and gave one to him.

She let his fingers curl around hers for a moment while the cup changed hands, watched his eyes slowly clear. The 'thank you' at his lips was drowned out by the loudspeaker - their flight was boarding.

They ran.

But boarding isn't exactly how she'd describe the line they find of a couple dozen cranky commuters standing around in, balancing coffee and leather briefcases and yakking on their bluetooths.

"Not first class?" she asks as they wait. It's not a complaint. She hopes it doesn't sound like one.

He turns to look at her, shifts the cup in his hand. "What? Oh... no. Last seats available. Commuter flight. All filled up."

Richard Castle sacrificing luxury for expediency? It doesn't bode well. She's not sure she likes it.

She wonders if maybe, maybe he's making himself uncomfortable on purpose. Punishing himself for supposedly being the unwanted, unloved son of a complete asshole and for letting that same man find Kate, get the drop on her, and threaten them. She can't believe she's even thinking it, that it entered into her head, but it finds some echo of acknowledgement in the shards of ice fracturing in his eyes.

"We don't need first class, Castle. Better this way."

"Yeah."

He's not even listening.

Tunnel vision and tunnel hearing.

It's a good thing she doesn't have to say why it's better because she can't think of any reason except that this way she'll be closer to him.

That's how she can help him.

Sure, she'll be his gun-wielding, self-defense-trained partner. But this - her presence, her touch, her words, soft and reassuring in the morning rush - is how she can help him.

When they finally board, he takes the window seat. She doesn't mind.

She doesn't need the view out the window; she plans to watch only him.

* * *

><p>He grips the opposite armrest too tight, squeezing her fingers with his other hand as they take off. She feels the drop in her stomach and swallows hard against latent anxiety and the roiling emotions associated with this entire trip.<p>

She's wary because she's his backup this time - and he's doing very little thinking ahead. She regrets not bringing their bulletproof vests - that might have been a mistake. Her options are entirely too limited, but Castle is still insisting they're only going to ask questions, insisting it's a friendly, if intense, chat.

This can't end well. At least she checked her weapon in her suitcase; at least she has that.

His calloused fingers tug on hers, his knees nearly at his chest in the cramped seats not made for a man his size. She wants more between him and Smith than mere flesh - more than even the barrel of her own gun.

"You okay?" she asks once they settle at their cruising altitude. They won't be up for long, and the little dips the plane makes remind her why she hates short flights.

He shrugs. She squeezes his hand in support, and he immediately relinquishes her fingers. She sighs and grabs his hand back, giving him a pointed look, hoping _don't be stupid_ gets across without words.

The lift at the corner of his mouth eases her anxiety and she relaxes in her seat, watching him as he stares at the headrest of the seat in front of him. She imagines that he's usually one to stare out the windows, excited, enthralled, and she wishes it were different now.

But it's not, and he's far too serious for her to cheer up; she's never been good at that. "What's the plan?" she asks, deciding that direct questions are her best bet.

He sighs and glances around before leaning into her, their shoulders flush over the armrest. "There wasn't much. Just - just a phone call about a meeting at 4 p.m. in Rock Creek Park. I don't know exactly who he was talking to. I tried to trace it on your computer, but it went through the main directory at the Capitol Building, and I lost it," he finishes, his voice low and almost hoarse, apologetic.

He used her computer. She closes her eyes because she knows. She - she most of all - knows exactly how he got here, what drives him. The need for answers. So she lets it go. At least he invited her along with him.

"The Capitol building," she repeats.

He nods slowly, his eyes meeting her now, grateful for the unasked for and unspoken forgiveness. "Sounds like he knows whoever this guy is. But I didn't get any further."

"So, we stake out their meeting?" she asks, reluctant. It doesn't sound like they've got much to go on, and there's something seriously shady about stalking around the Capitol building. "How popular are you out here?"

He turns and finds her eyes, miffed and a little amused at once. "Not as bad as New York, but, uh, not unknown."

"Okay. First stop, we get you a hat and some glasses," she decides.

"This is starting to sound like a bad amateur spy movie."

"Castle, we are a bad amateur spy movie."

* * *

><p>He hasn't made reservations (she should've seen that coming), so they end up at a Holiday Inn four blocks from the Capitol. One room. One bed. And one jittery novelist, pacing, making her dizzy.<p>

"Castle," she groans, flopping back on the bed as she tosses the last of their mediocre breakfast burritos into the trash can. "Stop moving."

"What do you want me to do?" he asks, and she sits up at the agitation in his voice. "I need - I need to know, and I don't know what to. . ." He trails off and collapses on the corner of the bed, head in his hands.

"Don't know what to ask?" she supplies, rolling toward him warily - cautious of his state and her own. He makes it hard to keep any distance; the urge to comfort him is overwhelming. But if she gives more than her hand on his knee-

Screw it. She sits up and wraps her arms around his shoulders, an awkward hug, presses her cheek to his for a brief moment. When she pulls back, she finds that her hand trails across his shoulder, over his chest, pauses over his heart.

His hand comes to cover hers, keeping her there. "What if he really is?"

"Doesn't change you, you know," she murmurs, looking down at their hands. "And once you know for sure, it's nothing more than a fact."

"What if he is and he's the one who-"

He can't finish the thought and she closes her eyes, taking a slow breath. What if his father is involved in the conspiracy that orchestrated her mother's murder? What if Smith had the power to stop it and hadn't used it? What if his father is a truly evil man, more than just a heartless bastard willing to kill his own son?

"Still doesn't change you," she says, finding her voice behind the lump in her throat, because he will still be her partner no matter what they find. She pushes everything else away. Answers first, fallout later. "But let's cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it. Right now? Let's think about something else while we wait for four o'clock."

He sighs, his hand tightening on hers. "Got any tips for that?"

It makes her sad. Sad because she left herself wide open for a smarmy comment, some of that infamous Castle humor, a leer and a smirk. And she got nothing.

She reaches up and brushes her thumb over his temple, fingers briefly in his hair.

"You bring a computer?" she asks, waiting for his nod. "Get it out. We'll google map Rock Creek Park, then we'll watch a movie."

"A movie?"

"Coping mechanisms, Castle. Said you'd never begrudge me them."

He hums and she presses her lips to his cheek in a surge of want, needing his answering smile, however weak. He broke into Smith's apartment for her when this was still about her mother's case, when it was still all about her. The least she can do now is find a comedy for them to watch until it's time for the meeting.

* * *

><p>Castle watches her lick her thumb as she finishes her lunch. Sandwiches, nothing fancy, but the way her tongue comes out to touch the corner of her mouth makes it difficult to concentrate. Or it's another one of his better coping mechanisms - focus on Beckett, ignore everything else. (Lying on the bed side by side with her as they watched a stupid movie on his laptop was both hypnotic and alluring; his love for her momentarily overwhelmed all else - the anxiety, the questions, the risk.)<p>

The sun is brilliant but doesn't offer much in the way of warmth; he wraps his coat tighter around his body and tries to focus. And not on her mouth.

She takes a swig of her water bottle and chucks the sandwich wrapper into the trash can in the park. "Okay, so. We're here for a while yet - let's find a place to observe. The Amphitheater, you said?"

"Yeah," he says. "My hope is that whoever he's meeting with - he'll give us a name or a lead. A place to pick up the thread and follow it back. Right?"

She doesn't nod, but stares at him a moment, then checks her gun once more. The same uniform as LA - white t-shirt, jeans, her hair loose around her shoulders, a coat in deference to the weather. She's beautiful and fierce and looking at him like he's too delicate. He doesn't much like that.

"Let's find a place," he says quickly. "We'll stay out of sight until-"

"I know you want to confront him," she interrupts. "How do you think this is going to go down, Castle? Either we talk to Smith after he meets up with this guy, or we follow the guy and get our lead."

He averts his eyes, glancing down the pathway through the trees, hunching his shoulders against the wind. "I don't know yet." He hates himself for it, because this is her mother's case, this is the first hint of a lead they've gotten in ages, and he can't -

She has her hands on her hips; she's not looking at him either. He sneaks a glance at her face, the tight purse of her mouth, the war in her eyes.

"It shouldn't be my decision," he says finally. "This is - this is your mom's-"

"And this is your father," she says, her voice clipped. "Makes us even."

He rubs a hand down his face. "Still not - how about this? You follow whoever it is Smith is meeting, and I'll stay here and-"

"No," she says insistently. "We are _not_ splitting up."

He sighs, staring at her. It can't come down to this - her mother's case or answers from a man who might be his father. He's always said it didn't matter, that he liked leaving the details to his own imagination, but this-

"We'll decide when we get there," she says quietly. "Let's find a place to keep watch."

* * *

><p>Castle is leaning against a rock, eyes closed, when she nudges his shoulder sharply. He startles, but she's got a hand on his thigh, her face close. "Hush. He's here."<p>

He turns slowly in their spot near the top of the amphitheater, concealed in a canopy of trees near a refreshment stand. The place is empty but for the lone figure now emerging on the amphitheater's stage. The stone walls that wing the stage provide a clear backdrop for the dark shadow that moves towards him.

"Smith," he says quietly. His _father_.

"And - whoever that is." Kate pulls out her phone and takes a few pictures, but when Castle glances at one, the length of the amphitheater keeps the image grainy. "Expensive suit. Looks-"

"Even though the call originated at the Capitol building, he could be anyone. A security guard, a staffer-"

She nods. "The House of Representatives and the Senate both meet in the Capitol building."

"He could be a tour guide for all we know," Castle sighs, watching the two men meet finally at the back of the stage. The overhead stage lights creak in a sudden stiff wind; Castle hunkers down into his coat, pulls the collar up around his ears; her hair in the gust brushes his face before she pulls it behind her ear.

"What are we doing here, Castle?"

"I don't know yet. I wish we could hear what they're saying." He studies the two outlines, shifts slightly against the outcropping of rock.

Smith. He has - he can't wrap his brain around it. Since she told him, he's spent the last week monitoring the listening devices, knowing that he was obsessing over the smallest things - the way Smith pronounced his name on the phone, the shuffling sounds of the man waking up, the one or two television programs he watched in the afternoons. But Castle needs something that the silence couldn't give him.

Answers. He needs answers.

"Does it matter so much?" she says quietly. He glances at her but her eyes are firmly fixed on the two men standing awkwardly apart from each other, both in the deep shadows at the back of the stage. They don't look friendly.

"I wish it didn't matter at all," he says honestly.

"You didn't know anything before, and you seemed content with that," she says, her voice wavering at the end.

"Because there was nothing to know. Now this - this is like having one little clue to a mystery. I can't not look, can't not investigate. You know how it is."

She sighs next to him, her shoulder nudges his gently. "Yeah. I know."

Her mother's case. What is he doing? Keeping her away from her own answers.

"Castle," she says urgently, half-rising.

He startles at the tone of her voice, looks down to the stage.

Smith and the man from the Capitol have both drawn their weapons, a standoff. Kate is reaching for hers, almost out of hiding.

"Wait, no-" He grabs for her, jerks her back down. "No. Kate."

"They-"

"Not worth your life," he growls at her, keeping his hand clenched around her wrist. He feels her hesitate at his side; he can hear the two below them, voices raised, intense and cutting.

"Castle, they-"

Before she can finish that, the percussive muffle of a silenced gunshot echoes in the air. Castle half-stands, stares down at the stage.

Smith is falling. Blood wells from a dark hole at his throat as he drops; his hands claw at the fatal wound while the man from the Capitol stands over him. Watching.

Castle is halfway down the amphitheater steps before he hears Kate hissing his name. But he can't stop. His eyes are riveted to the man dying on the broad stage in front of him. The Capitol man jerks his head up and meets Castle's eyes.

"Castle. Stop." Kate shouts behind him.

He takes the steps two at a time, intent on Smith. The other man looks past Castle, brings his weapon up, but Castle barely notices; he's moving too fast. Smith is - the blood wells up, stains his skin, his hands, his body arched in a rictus of agony.

Kate catches up to him at the base of the stage, but he's already reaching to vault himself up and over the seven foot side. Kate grabs the back of his jeans and yanks hard, tugging him down, but he launches himself back up.

"No," she hisses at him. "Castle, wait-"

He glances back at her, and a bullet shatters the edge of the stage, wood chipping up towards his face, splintering. He drops back down, hand to his face, wipes away thin slivers of blood. Kate is staring at him, horrified, and then he reaches up to try again.

"Damn it. No," she growls at him.

A gunshot tears a chunk out of the stage near his hand. He whips it back, falls to the ground.

"Get down, Castle." He feels her hand at his shoulder, his wrist, yanking him into a crouch next to her.

Another suppressed gunshot clangs against the first row of seats, then another at the stairs; a volley peppers the stage above their heads - ground cover. So the Capitol man can get away. The moment it dies down, Castle jerks upright, vaulting the stage before Kate can grab him.

"No. _Castle_."

He hears the brokenness in her voice, but he's already heading for the back of the stage, seeing the dark shadow of a man-

A bullet hits wide of him, like a last shot over the guy's shoulder, and Castle comes to a halt, breathing hard, crouched to make himself a smaller target.

"Castle." She's attempting to climb up onto the stage after him, weapon in one hand, having trouble pulling herself up the side.

He pauses, looks at the man gurgling through blood only feet from him.

"No. Get back here. You do not go first, Castle-"

But he can't stay here. He can't.

Castle creeps forward, testing the space between himself and Smith, treading the boards cautiously. When no gunshot comes, when there is only the strange and unnatural quiet that falls after gunfire ceases, Castle darts forward, heading for the man drowning in his own blood.


	6. Chapter 6

**Mr. Smith Goes to Washington**

* * *

><p>She watches him disappear down the stage with a fearful heart, the words of warning dying on her lips.<p>

Because of the bullet through the chest this summer, she's having trouble pulling herself up onto the stage. Damn it. The one time she needs to be better than this.

But she knows what it is - knows what it is to want answers so badly, to know you're never going to get them. How can she hold him back even if she could scramble up after him?

If she's right, if _they're_ right, if it's his father up there-

"He's gone - he's -" Castle appears over her. "Come on."

He's holding out his hand; she takes it, his other hand wrapping around her thigh and dragging her up, as she tries to ignore the fact that she _let him go first_ (had to) - and he doesn't even have a gun_._

Now is not - not the time.

She gets to her feet as he turns away, and she watches with reluctant eyes the hesitation in his step as he walks back to Smith's body. Nothing to do for him now.

He knows the wound is a fatal one, that there's no chance in hell that the man is still able to talk - very little chance, in fact, that he's still alive. And what if he were?

Smith has never struck Beckett as the kind of man who would share his secrets with anyone, even on his deathbed.

She presses her lips together as Castle drops to his knees next to the body, the slump of her partner's shoulders confirming what she already knew. She hovers at the end of the stage.

If Smith really is-

Oh, god. Enough. Enough of this. They will never know for sure, will they?

And it's not like they need physical evidence, need to see it written on a piece of paper. She is convinced - her only regret is for Castle, who deserves so much better - and he... Well, she doesn't know what he thinks.

She's not sure he wants the truth, if the truth means accepting this cold, dead man as his father.

She chews on her lip, turns nervously to the side of the stage. It feels like they've been here too long already; she doesn't know if the shooting has attracted attention, the gunshots muffled by the silencer, but she's not comfortable lingering here.

She doesn't want to explain it to the cops. To anyone, for that matter. What she wants is for them to go back the way they came, and disappear.

They didn't even get a clear picture of the man who shot Smith, she thinks, gritting her teeth. Could she even tell him apart from all the black suits in the Capitol? They were pretty far away, and then when she was running down the stairs after Castle she had-

Other things on her mind.

Okay. They need to move. Time for regrets later.

She takes a step in Castle's direction, startles when she sees his fist coming down, hears the dull thud of it hitting Smith's chest, trying to revive a man who can't be resurrected.

She's suddenly flooded with memories of Dick Coonan's death, her desperate attempts to save him. Her feet move forward without her realizing it, her head and her heart for once in agreement.

They need to get out of here. She needs to get him away from the body.

Now.

"Castle."

He starts at her hand on his shoulder, lifts his eyes to her - wide, raw, painful. He looks as if he'd forgotten she was here.

"Beckett."

Yeah. That's exactly what she wants him to do. Hold on to her. She'll be his anchor, just like he was hers once.

Still is.

"We need to go."

There's no time to be gentle, even though she feels so deeply for him, even though her heart aches at the look on his face. Get somewhere safe first. For all they know, the mystery man could come back; and even if he doesn't - better for them not to be involved in this.

Castle looks from her to the man at his feet, undecided, and a little dazed, she thinks.

"Come on," she urges, reaching for his elbow, pulling him up. "He's dead, Castle. Nothing we can do. We shouldn't be here."

His lips part as if to object; his eyes turn to Smith again, linger with a sort of morbid fascination. Some of the steel in her chest twists, bends like white-hot metal. Oh, god. Oh god. She can't even imagine - if it were her mother-

No. Don't even go there, Kate Beckett. She's not helping either of them by doing this.

It's not her mother. It's a completely different situation.

She breathes out slowly, moves her hand to wrap her fingers around Castle's. She waits, waits until he meets her eyes, until some sense of the here and now has soaked back into him.

Until he's with her again.

"Let's go," she says, tugging gently on his hand.

He comes.

* * *

><p>The drive back to the airport is a silent one. The amount of traffic is surprising, he thinks, considering the early hour - somehow, it's still the middle of the afternoon - and Kate keeps her eyes on the road, focused, beautiful in that sharp way of hers.<p>

It all happened so fast.

He doesn't even try to make small talk; staring through the window already takes him more energy than it should.

His heart just won't settle.

It's doing aerobics in his chest, stretching and pulling and thumping painfully against his ribs; the harder he tries to ignore it, the more he feels it, the throb of blood in the bed of his fingernails, his pulse heavy in his temples.

He hangs back while Kate deals with the car rental people, signs what needs to be signed, hands back the keys. He has both their bags, the strap of hers thrown over his shoulder, his left hand clenched over the handle of his own; when she turns back to him, reaches out as if to help, he shakes his head.

"I got it," he says, and his voice sounds foreign to his own ears.

She studies him for a second, looking like she might argue, but then she presses her lips together and turns, starts walking to the terminal.

He exhales in relief and follows, inanely grateful that she understands. He needs something to do, something to make him feel useful, keep him from going crazy.

Handling their luggage isn't ideal, but it's a start.

Checking in is a quick affair, especially since the bags are small enough to keep in the plane. The blond-haired lady at the desk gives them a strained smile, the bags under her eyes showing even through the heavy layer of make-up, and then she wishes them a safe flight.

For some reason, Castle is growing fidgety at the idea of flying; the small, restricted space of the seat makes him nervous in advance, makes him want to delay as much as he can. He spots a sign indicating the restrooms, slows down and touches his hand to Kate's elbow.

She jumps a little, and he realizes he's roused her from her thoughts.

"Do you mind if we make a quick stop?" he says, nodding to the men's door.

She follows his gaze, her eyes clearing with understanding. "Oh. No, sure. Go."

He turns, barely has time to take a step before she calls back, "Castle. You should leave the bags with me."

Right. He comes back and drops them at her feet, deliberately ignoring the domesticity of it all, before he vanishes inside the men's bathroom.

The only other guy in there is a sixty-something man with white hair and a tan that certainly can't be natural; he gives Castle an indifferent look as he wipes his hands, then walks out, leaving the writer alone.

Alone.

Castle relishes the space, the silence, the stark contrast that the neat, blue and white tiles provide to the jumble of his mind. He rests his hands on both sides of a washbowl and leans in, letting out a long breath as he tries to relax his shoulders, loosen the tight knots in his chest.

It's only hitting him now.

The reality, the definitiveness of it all. No going back. Smith is dead - and with him all the answers, all the knowledge Castle felt he had a right to.

This is not-

It's not what he wanted, not what he planned on, when he bought those plane tickets to Washington, DC. He didn't expect the frustration, didn't expect they'd leave here without having learned anything.

And the bitter taste of unfinished business on his tongue.

He pushes himself off the sink, runs both hands in his hair, down his face.

This is a nightmare. He's going to wake up. He has to.

He's going to wake up and then he can rewrite the ending, make it better this time, leave his reader with a sense of satisfaction, of knowledge. He won't let the - the father - die such a meaningless death.

But when he opens his eyes, he's still standing in the bathroom of Dulles International Airport, staring into the tired face of a man who has seen too much, heard too much, who can no longer tell truth from lies.

His chest feels too tight; he can't breathe.

Kate. He needs Kate.

He's out the door in seconds, runs into a young man who's standing on the other side, nearly goes to the floor.

"Shit, man, look where you're going," the youth curses, but Castle's not even listening, is only looking for her, eyes eager and a little desperate, until he finds her.

She's leaning against the wall, the bags neatly piled up next to her; she looks up when she hears the commotion, a flicker of concern rippling across her face.

Kate.

"Kate," he grunts, and before she can do anything more than pocket her phone he's wrapped himself around her, arms solidly wound around her waist, his face buried in her neck, his nose crushed to her collarbone.

Yes.

She tenses, and he feels her moment of hesitation, of holding back, but in the end she curls her arms around his shoulders, cool fingers splaying at his nape.

"Castle," she murmurs.

Her voice helps, the smell of her, the warmth of her slim body; the panic recedes, ebbs away, but that only leaves him on the verge of tears. It's been building inside him, steady and dark, ever since he knelt down on that stage; he's not sure he can hold it back now.

He grips her tighter, disregards her little gasp of shock or pain; he _needs_ her. He wants to take her into himself, take that light, that fire, use it to fight off the shadows that gnaw at his heart.

"Castle," she says again, just a breath really, but even in that breath he hears her compassion, her sorrow, her love - yes, her _love_ for him.

And he breaks.

* * *

><p>She won't let go.<p>

Not when the ticket agent checks them in, not when they board the plane, not when they walk stiffly down the cramped, narrow aisle to their seats.

She won't let go.

When he pulls on their joined hands to put their bags into the overhead compartment, she instead laces their fingers together and gives him a look.

He blinks at her, then shoves his bag into the bin with one hand, a little more awkward this way, but she doesn't care.

She won't let go.

When the flight attendant comes around and tells them to fasten their seat belts, Kate glances at the two sides of the strap, the buckle, tries to figure out a way-

Castle lets go, shakes her hand off to click his together. She has a sweeping sense of abandonment, strange and disconsolate, before she shakes her head at herself and puts on her own seat belt.

Castle's hands stray to the armrests, grip the sides, relax. His face is still that flat mask, eyes blank, but he doesn't seem to need her quite so much.

That's good. That's better.

The plane taxis down the runway, liftoff pressing them back into their seats, and Kate finds herself taking his hand again, unconsciously, naturally, not even thinking.

His grip around her fingers is at once painful and reassuringly tight.

She doesn't look at him, but she doesn't let go.

This time, she doesn't let him let go either.

* * *

><p>"Can I come?"<p>

Castle gives her a startled, shocked look, backs up, but she still has his hand and he can't go far. He doesn't look like he really wants to go far either. Behind him, luggage spins past on the carousel, but they have everything they need.

It's just a convenient place to stop - to either part ways here, in separate taxis, or to go together. Home.

He clears his throat. "Come - where?"

Kate can feel her heart pounding in her hand, a sweaty mess now that they've been unable to let go of each other in the last . . .oh, three hours or so? . . . and she wants badly to wipe her palms off on her jeans, but she can't.

She can't let go.

"Home with you?"

His mouth drops open, and she winces, shakes her head at how that sounded.

"No, not like that. Not that I don't, but-"

Shiiiit.

She closes her eyes. Okay, take a breath, Beckett. Try again.

"Do you want company?" she asks, opening her eyes, finding the strength to _keep the lines of dialogue open_. As her therapist says.

He closes his mouth; its twists up at the corners into a phantom of his usual leer, half the power, but all the same meaning. Comforting in its way. "You trying to invite yourself over, Beckett?"

Her chest squeezes - she's not sure if it's want or warning. "How about - how about you come home with me instead?"

This time his surprise is less comical, more tender, as if he truly can't believe she might want him there, but he appreciates it, appreciates the gesture, finds it sweet.

Ug.

"No," she says quietly, shaking her head. "Actually, I'm not asking, Castle. Come home with me."

He studies her face, flexes his fingers to let go of her hand. He brings his hand up to her cheek, smooths his thumb under her eye. "Okay."

Okay.

* * *

><p>"I don't think Smith is - was my father," he says.<p>

They've been silent in the back of the taxi for most of the drive. It's only when they get within a few blocks of her apartment that he speaks.

"What makes you say that?" she asks carefully. She's been studying him ever since they got into the cab, watching the play of emotions on his face, watching him process.

"It's too . . . contrived. I'd never write a story like that."

"Doesn't that lend it some credence?"

"No."

She bites her lip, glances away from him, the buildings flashing past them. She needs to step carefully. "Tell me how you would write it?"

When she looks back at him again, he's staring down at his left hand, tracing the life line in his palm with his thumb. She wishes she had never said that Smith's hands were the same as his own.

"I'd - yeah, okay, the aging spy? The threats about us interfering with his plan? Okay. I'd - that's credible. But him being - being my - no. It's too easy. It's a good trick."

She watches him rub at his palm, scrape his nail against his skin. When he says nothing more, she reaches over and takes his hand again, despite the throb of her fingers as they lace through his own. Before today, she had no idea that there were holding-hand-related injuries.

She knows she has bruises in between her fingers from. She still keeps his hand in hers.

"A trick."

"Mm," he murmurs, flexes his fingers as if he's fascinated by having her hand at his leg. "A trick. To - to make an impression."

"To scare me," she says softly. "And throw you off-balance. Make us focus on that instead of on what he might have been doing."

He nods slowly, curls his fingers around her hand, then drops his other one on top, as if sealing her in.

She's not going anywhere.

"Or it could have just been the truth," she nudges. "After Sophia-"

"After Sophia, I'm less inclined to believe a word out of anyone's mouth," he says bitterly, then jerks his head up and looks over at her. "Except you. I'd believe you."

Her chest tightens. She has to be so careful. So very careful. "There's no way he could have known what Sophia said to us. About your father having CIA connections."

"Coincidence."

She nods, accepts that. "True. Could be."

He sighs heavily.

"Castle." She gnaws on her bottom lip, sighs as well. "If you say - if you don't think he's your father, then okay. Okay. He's not."

He gives her a long look, but he's not really seeing her. Maybe he sees the city passing by the window, maybe he's watching Smith die on that amphitheater stage, all over again. Suddenly he gives her a smile, his eyes flickering as if trying to light up, trying to be happier. Trying for her.

"I don't know. I don't - want to think about it right now. Let's just get some dinner?"

"Okay," she agrees.

When he still looks like he's struggling, Kate drags his hand over into her lap, the warm and heavy weight of their twined arms like a reminder. She lays her free hand along his forearm, her fingers at the soft skin inside his elbow.

"Thanks, Kate."

"No need to thank me, Castle. Partners."

* * *

><p>When they exit the cab, she still has his hand in hers, and she doesn't let go, even though it makes for an awkward scramble out, even though it clearly upsets her sense of balance. Their palms brush, kiss as he slides out the door after her, sweaty and hot even in the cool evening, but Castle is not going to complain.<p>

His position on this is clear, has been for a long time. He will take.

Anything she has to give, anything she offers, even half-heartedly, even without meaning to - he will take it, take it all.

And he might be...distracted, tonight - he might not be at the top of his game - but still. He's not stupid enough to consider untangling his fingers from hers.

He stands at her back, a little too close, while she struggles to slide the key into the hole, then pushes the door open with her shoulder, pulling him in with her. A sinister creak makes her wince; she looks back in annoyance, a flick of her dark eyes that says everything, as the sound of the door slamming shut echoes on the marble of the lobby.

"We need to get it oiled," she mutters as she heads for the elevator. "Or changed."

Castle doesn't say anything. He rather likes it, actually, the solemnity of it, the dull, definitive ring - no going back. It feels proper, just the right amount of dramatic, unlike the muffled gunshot on that stage, unlike the man falling silently and the blood gushing out-

_Don't think about it._

"Castle?"

He blinks, realizes he zoned out for a second; the elevator is here, and Kate has stepped forward and turned back to him, their arms stretched between them, the connection warm and solid and physical.

He needs that. Needs her.

"Yeah."

He steps in after her, scrapes a smile together to soothe the flicker of concern that flashes in her beautiful eyes. Right. Kate. Kate is the person he should be focusing on.

Not that ridiculous excuse for a man that dared call himself Castle's father.

Her thumb ghosts his, smooth and delicate, and his lashes flutter, his chest filled up, too much, too good. Suddenly he can't remember why they shouldn't be doing this, can't remember any of the reasons why he should be holding back - it's nonsense, absurd really, because people die - people get shot-

_Don't think about it._

He abandons Kate's hand; she gives him a puzzled look, but before she can say a thing he's trapped her, his hands on either side of her, palms flat against the wood panel. Her breath hitches, and she says, "Castle."

It's not exactly a warning - she has that tone in her voice, the one that says she's out of her comfort zone, and whatever he does now, it's at his own risk. No guarantees.

But he's not paying attention. His eyes are on that vein that runs down the column of her neck, blue pulsating under her pale skin, a little fast, not exactly regular; he's fascinated, entranced, cannot help leaning in and pressing his lips to that wildly beating vessel.

His fingers are curled around the other side of her neck; he can feel her shiver, can feel the way her throat works as she swallows, lovely and hot, the soft skin rippling under his fingertips.

"Castle," she says again, a halted murmur, and he lets his hand slide into her hair, orients her face into his kiss.

She's warm and responsive, her whole body lifting towards his mouth; he feels her hands fist in his shirt as her tongue darts out to meet his, no teasing, just raw, painful need pouring out, hot and moist between their mouths.

She breaks away, little pants against his chin as he kisses her cheekbone, her nose, her ear.

"Castle - Castle, wait."

No. No. Enough waiting.

He nips at her jaw and she gasps, her hips jerking against him, _so good._

He's vaguely aware of the elevator chirping their arrival, but he couldn't care less.

"Castle," Kate tries again, then presses her mouth shut against a moan that comes out anyway when he traces his tongue to the supple lobe of her ear. "Castle. This isn't - it's just - the aftershock of-"

He groans, refuses it, her words, her excuses, swallows them with a hungry mouth.

And when she's boneless against him, when she's melting and so soft that he can no longer see the sharp edges, he draws back and waits for her to look at him. She does after a while, eyes so dark, a starless sky.

"You know it's not," he says. "You know it's not."

She stares at him, lips smudged with his kisses, head thrown back against the wall. Her chest is heaving, and she touches her tongue to the corner of her mouth, swallows.

"I know," she says.

* * *

><p>Her mind and her body are still reeling from that kiss; her hand trembles as she puts the key in the lock. Her moves are too jerky, and of course the keys end up on the floor; Kate curses, squats down, and only then realizes the presence of a brown, thick envelope half shoved under her door.<p>

She freezes.

At the edge of her vision, Castle kneels down too, his face serious, his mouth set; for some reason it helps, that he's not laughing, not making light of it. It makes her more - confident.

He reaches for the envelope when she won't, and inspects it; for a second, she's distracted by the smooth way his large hands work over the paper.

"No name, no address," he observes quietly, and dread crawls up her spine, clenches at her heart.

She looks up sharply, but they seem to be alone in her dimly-lit corridor; still, _seem_ isn't good enough for her.

Her hand falls to her keys, clutches them, and then she's back on her feet, working the door open, rushing inside. She spins on her heels, finds Castle watching her in something like puzzlement, doesn't even care - she hisses his name and yanks him inside, slams the door shut behind him.

Her fingers flip the bolts over, familiar, intimate, so used to it that she could do it with her eyes closed; and then she pauses, her palms pressed flat on the door, her heart pounding in her throat.

Safe.

They're safe.

She's grateful that he doesn't comment on it.

But he does crowd at her back, present and large, and then he murmurs her name. Just her name. And she straightens up again, turns around.

He's too close, but that brown envelope is between them.

Kate reaches out and takes it, pinches the brad, slides her thumb under the glued down flap. It slices her skin and she hisses in a breath, sucks on the papercut as she moves away from Castle, towards her kitchen counter.

He follows at a safer distance; she can gather her concentration again.

"What is it?" he asks, and when he comes to her side, his knuckles brush her hip.

She works on the envelope until she's got the flap open, a thick file folder jammed inside that won't come out at first. Castle reaches past her and tears the envelope down its seam, ignoring her protest (but really, forensics? at this point, it's too late). She unearths the folder from its wrappings and drops it to the counter.

She knows, without looking. She knows this is _the file_.

(But it's not thick enough, some part of her worries. There's not enough here.)

Castle moves first, opens the the file folder to the splayed-body photograph of her mother in the alley.

For a moment, Kate's paralyzed by _what this is_.

And then she realizes what it is not. She flips through pages, reports, statements, ballistics, all of it, too short, too familiar, and it's not - there's nothing new - it's a copy of her mother's police file, nothing more.

The noise that comes from her throat has Castle gripping her by the arm, as if he's afraid she'll sink to her knees. But even as despair blackens her vision, she finds it.

The one thing her own copy of the police report doesn't have.

A hand-written note.

At the top - a name.

At the bottom_ - You are my contingency plan._

* * *

><p>"This is a Congressman," he says stupidly, staring at the sheet of notebook paper, as if ripped hastily from a legal pad, the top edge ragged.<p>

She's staring at it too, the paper on the coffee table between them, Castle on the couch and Kate sitting in the floor across from him, and neither of them have touched it since he took it out of the folder and she grabbed it back.

"From New York," she adds quietly.

"Fifteenth district." He shakes his head, closes his eyes. "Includes Upper West Side. Harlem. Washington Heights."

_Washington Heights._

"He's on the Ways and Means committee," she adds dully.

"Do you even - can you even trust this?"

She lifts her head slowly, her eyes black. She doesn't answer him, just continues to look past him.

"He's manipulated us from day one, Kate." It does nothing; there's nothing in her eyes. Her flat affect, her lifeless mouth, the way she sits so still and so carefully. It scares him. "We can't know for sure."

"I know," she says, and her eyes drop back to the paper. "We're his back-up plan."

"Doesn't mean-"

"It means this is him, Castle. This is the guy."

And suddenly she presses her hand over her eyes and hunches over the coffee table, still so removed, her breathing harsh in the quiet of her apartment.

He keeps his mouth shut, but he doesn't think being Smith's back-up plan is such a great idea. Doesn't think he wants either of them as Smith's partners in this elaborate conspiracy. The guy might be dead, but Castle can't be sure Smith saw that coming - Smith seemed so unstoppable, so intent on his plan, whatever that was, so coldly furious when Castle had been investigating on his own. Whatever is in place, it might still be a trap.

So Smith, before leaving for DC, slides this just under Kate's door, and what-? "What's his motive?" Castle blurts out. "What's the story here?"

She lifts her head slightly, her hand wiping down her face to cover her mouth. Her eyes look brittle, red, fierce. "I finally - this is a name. I have a name, Castle." She's gritting her teeth so hard, he's afraid she's doing damage. "After all this time, after everything, I have the bastard's name. Don't - don't tell me not to-"

"Kate. Think about it. What's Smith's motive for leaving us this? He's not our friend. He made that abundantly clear."

She swallows, dips her head back down, but he can see now that she's listening. At least she's hearing him.

"He had an agenda. He had a plan. When I got in the way, when you got in the way, he threatened our lives. Montgomery might have sent him all that information, all his blackmail material, but Kate - _this is not it_. He is using us."

Her eyes flicker to her mother's case file, still on the kitchen counter. She drops her hand and clears her throat. "So." She winces and tries again. "So what does Smith get out of this?"

"I think he went to DC with something in mind. Something big. He wanted something, and it wasn't just to protect Montgomery's family or protect you. He told me he'd already arranged for that. No, he went to DC to blackmail this guy face to face. Blackmail him for something bigger than us, bigger than just your mom's murder."

"This Congressman."

"Maybe. We don't know that."

"The photo on his website matches who we saw-"

"At a distance. Wearing a coat. The images you got on your phone are so bad, we could never be sure."

She scrapes her hand through her hair, hangs her head over the sheet of legal paper, the name. But maybe not the name she needs. When she doesn't look at him, he takes that as permission.

"I'm sorry. We just can't be sure." He sinks to his knees, reaches out across the coffee table, and wraps his fingers around her wrist, tugs. Her head falls from her hand; she gets pulled closer, her eyes startling to meet his. "Kate. We can't be sure. But it's a place to start."

She breathes raggedly; he can see her struggling hard against hope, guarding her heart against the crushing disappointment. He leans in over the table and catches the back of her neck, brings his mouth against hers.

Kate moans into his kiss, her teeth catching his bottom lip. She's already wrapping her arms around his neck, her body drawn down to his as he rocks back, pulling her with him.

She lifts to her knees, her mouth brutal against his, and he fills his hands with her, squeezes what he finds, kneads the back of her thighs as she groans.

Her arousal sounds like grief, and he gentles, draws out a long drink of her lips, slides his hands up, under her shirt, cupping the back of her shoulders to press her hard against his chest. She goes still, gets quiet, and then her forehead drops to his neck as she sinks down.

Her heart pounds in an awkward rhythm against his own, out of sync, while her jagged breathing whispers harshly in his ear.

It's not exactly what he wanted, not how he thought this would go, but-

For them, it's a place to start.


End file.
